House Of Evolution
by SilverCrystal029
Summary: In a tense world, Rogue embarks on a mission surrounding the mutant cure that goes a way that she cannot predict. Why was she stuck in a time loop? Was what she experiencing real? Was the future really doomed, or is that what someone wants her to think? What can she do with so much power when everyone has an agenda?
1. Chapter 1

_****A/N This does involve some canon from the new canon series 'House Of X' and 'Powers Of X' and contains info from them. Please read first if you don't want spoiled! *Also, I own no X-Men or Marvel content*_

* * *

**_What would you do if you knew you lived multiple times? _****_What would you do if you knew you lived multiple times? _****_What would you do if you _**

* * *

_"What is reality, anyway?" It was a fair question for the Caldecott, Mississippi native to ask. Her mutation allowed her to peer into people's lives, like doors. She had touched people whose mutant abilities changed reality. Rearranged it. Made it new. She had seen through the eyes of the first mutant, frontwards and back. That was why Hank McCoy had so graciously offered to tutor Anna Marie, better known as Rogue. Apocalypse's intrusion on her life had put her a whole semester behind. _

_She stared at him from a cropped, black X-Jacket (one she said was cheesy when she first saw it), gloved hands folded in her lap. She's still drawing her makeup dark, but she can't color over the beautiful woman she's growing into at her own pace. She does still cut her signature hair, even if she no longer straightens it. Hank flashes a toothy smile, so different from Logan even though they are both 'feral'._

_He closed the textbook he'd been reading from. "I would say, reality is what we make it." _

* * *

**_House Of Evolution_**

-x-

* * *

Maybe, he'd always known this day would come. Man, historically, feared what they did not understand. Tried to eliminate it, _cure it._ Now, he and the institute's administrators were crammed in his office discussing one thing: The mutant cure. And for once, they were certain it wasn't a scheme or trap. The cure was developed by the telepath's very own love, Moira MacTaggert. And, while the cure was very harmful to their species, she would never release unsafe medicine. It worked.

Charles Xavier barely knew what to think, but his teachers had strong opinions of their own.

"We _can't_ tell the kids about this," Logan snarled, adamant for his voice to be heard. "Some of them are not mature or secure enough to know!" He argued. They all knew who he was really referring to, one conflicted and impressionable stripe haired mutant. She was slowly growing into a woman, but one he worried about all the same.

Charles' head was steeped on his fingers, deep in thought as he heard everyone's points. Their perspectives were invaluable. "Life is too long for one's body to feel like a_ prison,_ Logan." Hank answered, sympathetic to Rogue and the Morlocks' plight. "There are many a reason one might want such a thing, even if _we_ cannot understand it." Logan growled, the sound vibrating in his throat.

"This ain't sexual orientation or gender studies, Hank. Those, are choices youngin's get to have. Not to change what they were _created,_ as!" He pounded a fist on Charles' desk. "The message, everything about it is wrong." He exhaled loudly, like a bull.

"I have to agree with Logan. This is sending a dangerous message that our plight, our _powers_ are curable... That the human condition is _not_ the issue, I cannot agree." Ororo hung her head, Warren beside her.

"I don't know, guys. This could end up saving a lot of lives. I wanted to be anything but a mutant, and I was almost ready to do anything not to be. Some people, some kids might be able to find a safe way to be happy." Logan turned his head in disgust. There was nothing wrong with having an X-Gene. When the world was ending, nobody complained then. It was sick, and he would go down protecting the school from this.

Hank only sighed. "And Charles, what do_ you_ think?" The telepath only sighed. His dreams had been seeming more like visions, disturbances through time as some unknown force tried to contact him.

"I empathize with your sentiments, Henry." Logan bared his teeth instinctually, but Ororo cautioned him with a hand on his shoulder. "But, the world of human and mutant relations is not where it should be for this to exist." He explained sadly. Mutants as a race could be wiped out, leading to the bleak and barren futures he was forced to see through Apocalypse. "But, I would like to speak with just Wolverine. Potential missions..." The stout man's face lit up.

This was his area of expertise. "Oh, I'd_ love_ to go, Charles. Personally smash all those vials, myself." He rubbed his hands together.

"That wasn't what I was thinking." He wheeled away from his desk and looked out the window. "Logan, I don't want a huge disturbance or destruction to Moira's lab. You know, she's..." He cleared his throat. She still wasn't an easy topic to talk about. "She's precious, to me. Anyways, I'll only be sending one. And you already know who it is." The man was already shaking his head, rage creeping through his body. "Rogue."

_"Chuc-"_

"She deserves the choice, Logan. More than anyone. She still has _nightmares_ most nights about Apocalypse, her crushing isolation... None of this is a secret." Logan scrubbed his face in frustration. He knew better than anyone that the girl still had a lot of struggles. And though he desperately wanted to help her, he wasn't sure how. This kept him up pacing at night.

"There's _nothin' wrong_ with her, Charles." He answered, shaking. The man frowned sadly.

"You _know_ that I do not think so, either. But, she has pledged so much to me and_ my_ dream. Who am I not to further hers?" Logan grappled with his temper. Rogue was one topic he always got his way about.

"Being a normie's her _dream_?" The telepath's eyes darkened, slightly.

"You know what I meant. I care about Rogue's happiness, Logan. And that means allowing her the adult privilege of choice, regardless of what I think. If you love the girl half as much as I think you do," Logan stiffened at that. It was obvious they were the closest at the school. His vow of protection ran deep for her, because she seemed to get used and hurt at every turn. But, he was still embarrassed when confronted with the fact of how his relationship changed her, for the better. "You will do the same._ Trust her_, Logan. No matter what she chooses."

He jammed his hands in his jacket's pocket. He didn't like any of this, one bit. But he knows she would never forgive him if she found he hid it from her. She would just have to decide. He had worked with human S.H.I.E.L.D Agents before. He didn't care if she could fly or lift buses over her head. His mission had always been to love and accept her unconditionally, and the cure went against that. "Fine. But, let _me_ talk to her." Charles nodded, almost seeming relieved to have that duty taken.

"Of course, Logan."

* * *

_x_

_"Wake up, Charles. You've spent a hundred lives, dreaming. Dreaming... It's good to have a dream. But don't forget, it doesn't have to be the only one. Life is a series of choices. Dreams, if you really think about it..."_

_x_

* * *

Rogue stared at near shoulder length gloves he'd bought her as a gift as though they were more interesting than what he'd said. A cure existed. One that _worked,_ not one that was a trap, like last time. A mutant cure. Sure, why wouldn't Storm want to control the weather? Or never get hurt, like Kitty? But, Rogue wanted to _touch_. To have children, hold babies... The list went on.

She knows it took everything in him to tell her, and only because he knows best of all the girl doesn't do betrayal. He was puffing fast on a cigar, as she pulled one of his worn, leather jackets around herself. "A cure, huh." She said finally, her mouth refusing to say more. He stifled a sigh, his hands in his blue jean pockets.

_"Yep."_ He doesn't meet her stare.

"And the professor wants_ me_ to go?" He nodded stiffly. Rogue arched a well groomed eyebrow. "Is this some official _"get over it_" sign, or somethin'?" She asked, her voice getting defensive. He turned on her so fast her eyes widened. A strange emotion shined deep in his, one she can't really place despite how well she knows him.

"Of_ course_ not, Rogue." She drops her stare, regretting the snarky comment all together. "He _respects_ you. Thinks, before it's destroyed..." She looked up at him in shock. Rogue had never expected him to say it. They really did want to give her a chance to decide. Decide to change all she was.

"Logan-"

"Your choice," He cut in quickly, looking away. "But no matter_ what_ you do, what we think about it... We want you back, here. You're always welcome, here. It's your_ home_, just... Don't forget that." It would've been such an easy decision, once. Rogue didn't get to make the peace with her powers like the others did. But, as she looked into Logan's eyes, she was rethinking that choice. For the first time, ever. Could they really love her, just as she was? Could she ever love herself?

This was all too much. Rogue didn't have any answers. "Logan, Ah gotta be honest. Ah don't know _what_ to say." He smiled a little.

"I expected that response. Sure you're all good on this mission?" It seemed like an insanely huge responsibility on her shoulders. That almost seemed to go against everything Charles ever told her. But, she would just have to trust them.

"Ah won't let the professor down. Or_ you_, Logan." He placed a large hand on her shoulder.

"If you make the decision for yourself, you can't let me down. C'mere, kid." He pulled her in a tight embrace.

"Thank you."

* * *

_"Oh, but you..." Apocalypse's voice shakes buildings as he chuckles. All of the X-Men lay strewn about, all but one. The one who brought him there. Her, the one with the blood of the first one. Rogue. "No matter what happens to me, little one... You. You will be eternal." The look in his eye and the smile on his face don't make her feel like that's a good thing. She begins to cry, too weak to do do anything else._

Rogue shot up in her bed, no longer surprised by En Sabah Nur visiting in her sleep. She had it down to science, at least three times a week. She needed to get a glass of water, and then she could sleep. She rubbed her eyes, she was tired of this. And, her nightmares are worse as she thinks about her cure mission. She rifled a hand through disheveled hair and tried to shake her unease.

No matter what she did, she knew everything was about to change. She couldn't help but feel every memory that surfaced, each dream she had was for a _very_ specific reason. Or, she was just finally losing it. After her life, that was an option. She looked out into the darkened room, Kitty snoring peacefully. She sighed. Nothing disturbed that girl, and she would always be jealous.

She slipped out of her bed quietly, like she could actually rouse Kitty if she tried. She managed to slip downstairs in a dark, oversized T-Shirt and prayed nobody was up. Logan could always smell a nightmare on her, and it made him anxious. Nightmares were encoded into her DNA, now. He didn't need to torture himself with hers.

She flipped a light switch and jumped when she saw Scott sitting at the table, staring into a carton of ice cream. He looked up and frowned. "I thought I was the only one up at this hour." He watched as she sat across from him, rubbing an eye. "Another nightmare?" She nodded, leaning her head on her hand.

"Waitin' for it to turn to soup?" She questioned, eyeing the untouched, strawberry ice cream. He chuckled dryly.

"Oh, right. Sorry. Got lost in thought." He rose and placed it back in the freezer.

_"Y'don'_t say..." Rogue answered, feeling how badly she wanted a good night's sleep.

"I just got caught up thinking," Scott continued on, as if she asked. "Y'know... Like Apocalypse, or the next big battle we had to fight... Do you know how little control we had?" She cocked an eyebrow.

"No, Scott. I didn't." He eyed her seriously, worry lines etched on his face. She tried not to stare at growing muscles, the stubble pervading his face...

"I mean it. What if we lost to Apocalypse and he changed everything? What if _this_ world is a result of something like that? I don't know, Rogue. We feel like too small of players, sometimes. There are things at force we can't comprehend, we're proof." She knew things were bad if Scott Summers was losing hope. "The professor is hiding things, again. I can tell. And last time," He cuts himself off, not wanting to talk the girl's ear off. She looked exhausted.

Rogue swallowed, since she was hiding something, too. It was better the team didn't know about the cure. They'd want to talk to her about it. "He means well, Scott. Jus', try to remember that." He watched as she plucked a banana and began peeling it, carefully. Then, he marveled at long gloves she even slept in.

"The road to hell was paved with good intentions." His glasses glinted in the light. He rose and Rogue watched as he went to return to the room that he and Jean 'secretly' shared. "Well, y'know... If this reality is fake or changes overnight," He turned in the doorway, standing in a purple shirt Rogue knew he thought was blue. He smiled. "It was fun."

Rogue smiled down into her lap. "Yeah. Here's _lookin'_ at'cha, kid." She watched him retreat into the darkness, unsure of how he'd had the same, strange feeling.

* * *

**_What would you change if you could do it again? _****_What would you change if you could do it again? _****_What would you change if you could do it _**


	2. Chapter 2

_reincarnation \- the rebirth of soul in a new body_

_x_

_What is real, why does it matter? It's real if you say it's real._

_x_

* * *

_"I feel as if I have known you all my life, Moira. In many lives, rather..." Charles looked up from his whimsical, coconut drink as he sat along the beach with her. He was a cerebral man, but she made him think about the impossible. He wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve being in the presence of such a calm, beautiful soul. So tolerant, understanding, and intelligent. Someone who could inspire ideas in him like no other. "It is a comfort with which nothing compares..." He grabbed her hand._

_And she would just smile, almost sadly. Like he was almost right. "Wha'dya mean, Charles?" She asked, sipping her daquiri as she studied the sands. _

_"Oh, nothing." He replied, staring at the cloudless sky. "How did you know I needed a vacation... To get away from everything." He smiled, genuinely, staring into her brown eyes. _

_"I know everything about ya, Charles. Even things you don't know. From ya dream, to right now." God, he loved her. He never knew what she meant half the time, but she spoke such special, eloquent poetry that he loved to listen to. That he was so close to almost understanding. _

_"Right, Ms. MacTaggert." He responded, amused. Whatever she meant, he was lucky for it. 'Such peaceful days as these won't last.' He chased her stare. 'I might as well enjoy them.'_

_I am here. I have always been here._

_"I"m sorry..." Charles laughed, a much younger man. Still bald, but capable of walking. His massive school of mutant children just a pipe dream, something to occupy his wandering thoughts. "Have we met?" He kicks himself as he looks at the stunning woman, her brown eyes boring through him. A much smoother man would've asked her to dinner immediately._

_She smiles and it makes him feel at home. "Yes. We have." His smile doesn't fade, but he smooths out his grey suit and speaks again. _

_"Who are you?" _

_"Read my mind, Charles. You'll see." _

* * *

x

Rogue's first real mission was to Scotland. Yes, she would always be resentful of this. Even Scott wasn't briefed on what she would do. She would get to Moira and Charles would conference in through their minds. His old friend would see her ways, and everything would be fine. Or, at least he said. Rogue knew better than to expect it to go so easily. She could only hope.

She cloaked the mini jet and stared up at the cloudy sky. Who wanted to go to Scotland? She shrugged Logan's bomber tighter over her X-Suit, cursing when she sees smog billowing to the sky. The lab was already on fire. _'Shit.'_ Somebody had beat her there, and she was all alone. She took off one of her brown gloves, cursing as she crept quickly to the facility.

It looked all but abandoned. Trashed. Demolished, as Rogue moved quickly into the building. _'Rogue! Rogue, oh my god...'_ Once Charles checked on their link, he saw the chaos around her. _'No. Hang on, Rogue. I'll send the rest of the tea-'_

_'It could be a trap!'_ She responded, staring into the shadows.

_'No, Rogue. You cannot be left there. This was a mistake. Hold tight.'_ Rogue swallowed, wondering how she was supposed to locate the cure in all of it.

_"Anna Marie._" The voice was so like and unlike Rahne's. Rogue frowned, turning to see a beautiful woman in a lab coat. She was a more muted red head than Jean, but ginger all the same. Around the professor's age but aging like a model. Or royalty, Rogue noticed. The look in her eyes was a bit crazed for the description Charles had given her.

"Charles told ya about me." Rogue answers, blinking as the smoke makes her eye water. The Scottish woman nodded.

_"Some_thin' like that..." She stared at the girl with the same, unreadable smile. Rogue didn't think very much was funny, and she swore she saw figures in the shadows.

"Moira... Ah, Ah _think_ ya better bring the cure and come with me, to safety. The professor will know what to do." She didn't look like she was going to move.

"You're_ finally_ here." Rogue finds her heart thumping in her chest when the doctor takes a step forward. There's something sinister about her, like she knows so much more than she does. Like, no matter what Rogue does the answer is predetermined. That's how she's felt as of late. Even Scott... She stepped back, watching her every move. "Ah know, Charles. So well. Ah _knew_ he would send ya."

Rogue blinked, stifling a cough as she waited for Moira to continue. "There _is_ no cure, Rogue. Was all a diversion. _For you_." This had been the story of the girl's life, all her nineteen years. Scheming and plotting surrounding only her. Angry tears welled in her eyes as she clutched her fists. She's upset, but part of her knew this all along.

"Who _are_ you," Rogue seethed, shaking as the lab crumbled around them. "Apocalypse?_ Sinister?_ Huh, who?" Moira just smiled, her eyes crinkling in the corners.

"None of them,_ and yet._.." She placed a hand along the wall, soot falling in her ginger hair. "I am_ stronger._" Rogue's heart hammered in her throat, her skin going even more pale_. 'What is this, what's happening?'_ Moira grinned wide, sending a chill down Rogue's back. "Was never supposed t'be me. You kin do what _really_ needs t'be done. See it all. Make it right." She was just babbling as she advanced on her.

Rogue stumbled over her own feet, holding a pale hand in front of her. "Ah was asked not to hurt you." Moira stared at the shaking mutant.

"Oh child. Come home." She lifted her own hand and touched her fingers to Rogue's face._ 'No, WHAT-_' Rogue screamed, her shrill cries echoing through the lab. She'd never felt a touch like this. And, her mind was not being bombarded with memories. No secrets, thoughts and feelings rushing her mind. This had never happened, not once since her mutation manifested.

"NO, WHAT!" She screamed, struggling to pull away from her. "W-What..." She stared at Moira, who was still smiling. _"What are you?"_

"There wouldn't be enough _room_ in ya head to take the memories of someone who remembers_ every_ life." Rogue's head was spinning as she tried to wrap her head around the words. Could Moira do that? Was that her mutant power? Was she going to be forced to be reborn, again and again? _'No...'_ She thought, her chest squeezing tight. _'NO,'_ "Its time for_ you_ to take over. To have the ability to see _and_ to change it."

Groaning, she collapsed beside Rogue who was touching her face. "N-No... What did you do?" Rafters from the ceiling crashed into the ground. Rogue looked around her in a daze. What did she do, now?_ 'Professor...'_ She called out weakly._ 'Professor?'_

'_Rogue? Rogue, say something? The team will be there, soon.'_ But, when Rogue saw Mystique and Destiny slide out of the shadows, together, she couldn't respond. It wasn't a nightmare without them showing up. She could honestly say they were the two last people she expected to see. A tear washed down her face as they approached her.

_"Daughter._.." Irene began, fires raging around them.

"Rogue..." Rogue stared at them through silver bangs, trying to make sense of anything that was happening. Destiny batted at an unseeing eye.

"I can see the world bending _around her_, Raven. The eddies of change rippling from her, but she is a black hole..." Rogue's blood ran cold. _'What are they talkin' about?'_ She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling like the little girl they used to discuss over her head. "We have done this song and dance with_ Ms. MacTaggert_ many times, Anna." She continued, the younger girl watching them both.

Rogue turned to the spot where Moira had fallen, but she was gone. "No,_ she-_"

"The power she gave you_ was_ reincarnation, Rogue. One you will now passively have." Her grey eyes went wide with shock. They already knew.

"NO, you're lying!" She hissed, backing away.

"I'm afraid she isn't, Rogue. I know it isn't fair. But you are the _only_ one who can do both." Rogue shook her head, white bangs blocking her vision.

"Do WHAT?" Mystique dropped her head and sigh.

"See the future, and_ then_ change it." Suddenly, Moira's babble made sense. Had she been starting her life over and changing the world? Was it affecting her life? "Now, you must touch Destiny. So you have the sight." Mystique continued, her face grave. Rogue shook her head, tears squeezing out of her eyes.

"No. Ah won't,_ Ah won't do it!_" She screamed, refusing to look at either of them. This was just another nightmare. It wasn't real. Just like reincarnation wasn't real. "You're wrong, you're _both wrong-"_

_"Believe us_, Rogue. We don't have time." Destiny reached out and touched her ungloved hand. Rogue screamed, learning more about her mother than she ever wanted to. How she and Mystique used to keep tabs on her, how long they'd watched her and tracked her future. All of it. But then, the memories didn't stop. They extended well beyond _her_ life. They kept going for all of time. Blood trickled down Rogue's nostril as she tried to see everything, at once.

Until earth is nothing. A slop of a planet, filled with nothing but death and decay. Bred into nothing. All because of the sentinel initiative. Because mutants founded their own sovereign nation, leading to an unforeseen chain of events. All because of one, unavoidable moment. Rogue saw it all at once. _'No... Why me, Ah can't do this...'_

Mystique caught Destiny as she fell from Rogue, who was trying to sort through the knowledge she gained. She was shaking, so confused what she was supposed do with it. "You see it, you can change it. You'll do much better than miss _'I don't want to be a mutant, anymore.'_ Mutant kind depends on it, Rogue." She didn't look convinced. "It's the only way... Or in just a decade or two, it's all over." The realization hits the X-Men member. This was far worse than the cure.

Rogue looked at the ground, her head too hazy to respond._ "I..._" She looked up to see her adoptive mother, clad in virginal white. Not very fitting. Rogue's head is filled with too many memories and too many maybes. Futures that could be, would be. She didn't know, anymore. How many times had her mother pointed this gun at her?

She knows that blue skinned woman will do anything, but she still wonders why. "_Forgive me,_ daughter. It is time to start." She blinked. _'No.'_ Nobody knew. What if she messed up? What if she can't do it all the right way, again? Find the X-Men, earn their trust, find a family in them. She doesn't want to do it differently. She just wanted to do it over again and cherish every moment._ 'No, DON-' _Their faces float to her mind, knowing one is waiting by the hangar until she returns.

The shot thundered throughout the whole lab, making Rogue's chest feel warm and tingly. She did it. She really did it. _"You-"_ Rogue dropped to the ground, her hand twisted in a claw. Destiny let out a sob, just as shocked that her lover had done it.

"Come, love. We_ mus_t go. The X-Men..." They had read it in her diary, they wouldn't be long, now.

_"B-But,_" Destiny reached for Rogue's bleeding body. "There had to be another WAY."

"She will be born again. She," Mystique turned away from her, her hand scrubbing her face. "She will _undo_ this. Come." She tugged the mutant behind her and ran as the lab began collapsing in on itself. The X-Jet just landed when Mystique and Destiny made their escape. Moira was gone, now, leaving a terrified Rogue to think about dying. Would she die, or would she be reborn, again? Which would be scarier? She didn't know as she felt her lungs fill up with blood. '_Ah'm sorry, Logan. Ah'm sorry...' _She thought, her eyes welling with moisture. He would blame himself, but this wasn't anybody's fault.

Would she be able to tell anyone? Logan. Scott. Remy? She was going to talk to him when she got back. _"After mah mission."_ But, she wasn't getting back. Not this time. But, she did hang on long enough for Logan to race through the rubble as flames seared his skin. Set him aflame as he strained his lungs on smoke to smell her. Praying her didn't smell her burnt or already dead.

She was laying in a pool of her own blood._ 'I never should've left her alone,'_ He thinks rabidly as he takes her into his arms. '_I should've said fuck you, Xavier. Taken her somewhere else. Sent him to talk to Moira.'_ He thinks as he carries her limp body to Scott and the X-Jet. He might feel a pulse, but she's gone so white. Cyclops can only watch as Logan lays her down and continues to touch her skin to his. "C'mon,_ Stripe._" He raised his claws and slashed his own skin while Scott watched in horror.

Her eyes are focused on him, but she can't talk. Even if there's so much she wants to say. _'Logan, please... I'll be reborn, I'll find you-'_ He dropped his forehead on hers, helpless as her pulse faded. This couldn't be happening. It was fake. An illusion. '_Please, god. No...' _He hears Scott panting as he jostles her, desperate to make her more responsive.

"Marie,_ please."_ He breathes, shaking as he presses his hand to her face. _"Heal."_ A tear slips out of Scott's visor as Rogue smiles, blood dripping down her chin. They'll understand one day, and she'll tell them. All of it. Scott backed away when Logan silently shut her eyelids with his hands. He sat there for a long moment, his fingers intertwined with her hair. Silver and auburn. Not saying a word as he continued to breathe. _"She's_," He didn't continue, Scott straining through his red visor to see. She couldn't be...

_"Wolverine,"_ He stood, Rogue dangling inconsequentially in his arms. Scott already had his back to them, his forearm pressed against his eyes. Faces were gathered in the X-Jet's window. "We have to... We have to _go._ Go show Xavier what he's done, where keeping us in the dark has _gotten us_!" He put his visor on and steeled his face, wondering how he would ever tell the team.

* * *

_**Time is a circle, it all happens at once. **__**Time is a circle, it all happens at once. **__**Time is a circle, it all happens at once. **__**Time is a circle, it all**_

* * *

**XAVIER FILES**

_Evidence provided by the Apocalypse Event and mutant Destiny's diaries supports there are other timelines than the one known as: EARTH 616 (Conflicting reports in Irene Adler's books could mean that in other times, her words transpire. This would also explain the conflicting futures Charles, Mystique, and Erik all saw under his control.) _

_They also suggest that the future may be able to be manipulated, perhaps with mutant aid. _

_*Mutants could potentially restart the mutant/human conflict until they win, humans are not to learn this information. _


	3. Chapter 3

_"It's not a dream if it's real, Charles." _

_-x-_

* * *

Of all the people to curse with reincarnation, why her? To remember how painful her life had already been, and to know she had to do it again. She almost couldn't bare the thought. And Destiny's unique ability had yet to surface again, so she had no clue what she was supposed to change. How she could save humans and mutants from a future that destroyed them_ both? _A future of nothing. The images barely made sense but they made her blood run cold at the thought, even as a little girl.

A highly intuitive and perceptive girl. A very serious one.

She struggled to not come across as gifted from a young age. Rogue knew her mutation was coming, she didn't need any extra attention. She would get enough as she grew. Something about Moira's mutation made the repetition of her life bearable. Rogue thought about all the close calls, the alienated moments, the fights she didn't want to fight and she didn't feel strong enough to do it all, again.

_"She carries herself in such a grown up way..."_ With eyes that always seemed older than she was.

She made it to her mutation resurfacing, being transferred to Bayville high. Even seeing her old teammates and friends again.

* * *

_Mothermold: a replicating, adaptive sentinel that is self-aware and capable of creating Mastermolds. While a Mastermold is incapable of improving beyond it's ultimate sentinel state, it's theorized that, given enough time, a Mothermold is capable of producing purely adaptable machines based on Nano-Sentinel technology._

_**Once mutant hunting technology reaches this point, the future is lost._

_The creation of the Mothermold A.I always leads, eventually to the sentient creation of Nimrod. If the technology thresholds needed to create a Mothermold are avoided, then so are their subsequent creations.*_

_-x-_

* * *

"There's something so... Melancholy about her." Jean couldn't shake the pervasive sense of deja vu she's felt, lately. Like they should know the girl much better, like they used to,_ before. S_cott's brow wrinkled into lines like it often did as he stole a glance, the girl sitting all alone at a lunch table. Green shirt, black skirt. Silver bangs. Goth. Scott had never seen her socialize with anyone since she'd come there.

She was a mutant, but even Charles couldn't get a read on her scrambled mind.

"I don't know..." Jean sighed into her sandwich, younger Kitty, Spyke, and Kurt eating. "I just always sense it when she's around." Kitty quirked an eyebrow at the older girl, always so serious.

"Melancholy? You mean like, _besides_ her outfit?" Spyke snickered.

"Kitty," Scott admonished with a sigh of his own. Jean was right, there was something about her that was sad. Familiar. Like she wasn't where she belonged, and he couldn't explain it. But when Fred became fixated on Jean it proved it. She was not a typical Brotherhood member.

_-x-_

Rogue tried not to get emotional when she saw Logan and Scott, lying there. In their old uniforms. She looked at his old, familiar visor and sighed. She didn't know all she knew the last time she was there._ 'Give me a sign, please... What am I supposed to do?_' If anyone was listening, they didn't answer. She wiggled out of a glove and tried to work up the nerve.

She reached a porcelain hand down and touched him gently. Tears flooded her eyes as her friend's memories rushed her head, none involving her because she's not an X-Man. Suddenly, flashes and footage of Apocalypse rising flooded her mind._ 'Ah... Ah was with the X-Men when Mesmero got to me. Maybe if I stay with Mystique that won't happen, and sentinels...'_ More violent, apocalyptic images assaulted her. There would only be one way to find out.

When she'd taken enough of Scott's power, she looked towards the warehouse. It was time to play the part.

"Learn how to treat a lady,_ Fred_." She watched, unafraid as he lifted the large and rusted hydraulic parts. It wouldn't have ended well if he tossed it at the telepath, her powers are nowhere near as large as they come to be. She sees the confusion and shock on the girl's face, like she really would've expected her to leave her to Fred's devices_. 'They don't know me, yet._.' She thought, her head still spinning with the revelation of her reincarnation.

Fred wrinkled his nose at the scrawny goth. She certainly wasn't his type, and he didn't care about anything but Jean. "Oh, what're _you_ gonna do? Give me bad make up? A bad outfit?" He sneered at her like she hadn't heard those before. Jean watched on, helpless. _'Scott's power isn't enough, alone.'_ She thought. His blubber was like armor.

"Oh, you don' know me. Ah_ take_ powers," Rogue grabbed his clammy arm, not enjoying the feeling of his memories rapidly shooting into her mind. "And Ah can take more than one, asshole." The giant mutant groaned, and soon Rogue had thrown him over her head. She shot him with blast for good measure, feeling Jean's eyes burning through her.

_'She's.. She's really, but...'_ She couldn't wrap her head around it, all the complex feelings the girl felt._ 'What's going on?'_

"You witch," Fred snarled. "You can't handle me." Rogue smirked at that.

"Oh, Ah already have. You're trash, Blob. And Ah'm here to take ya out." She opened her eyes wide and the optic blast sent him flying through the sheds rickety ceiling. Her shoulders shrank tiredly as she went to untie Jean. This was the part she'd been looking forward to the least. How wouldn't she turn them down? She wanted nothing more than to see the professor, to tell him who and what Moira was.

Jean gasped when she noticed blood pooling on Rogue's palms. _'What's she so conflicted about?'_ She watched as she gingerly set her free.

"There." Jean rubbed her raw wrists, looking around where Fred had held her captive for hours.

"You..." Jean tried to get the girl to meet her eyes, but she wouldn't. "You saved me._ Rogue_-" The girl ignored her words and walked out into sunlight. Logan was helping Scott stand, looking around anxiously when they appeared.

"You-" He too felt a small sense of deja vu, nothing he could put to words. But, Mystique's ace in the hole appeared to help them. He floated to Jean's side, inspecting her as Rogue fished up Scott's visor. The two junior members watched, shocked by the goth girl's compassion. And a lingering familiarity.

"There. Ah only took a small dose o'ya powers. You'll feel normal in a few hours, okay?" He looked up into surprisingly soft, grey eyes. Older than the fifteen or sixteen year old in front of him.

"Y-You're like an angel, Kate." She shifted uncomfortably as Kitty and Kurt moved in.

"No, Scott. Trust me. I'm no angel." She stood, hugging herself. Logan can't place his finger on why, but this girl's sorrow calls all to him. She needs someone and has no one, that was obvious to him.

"B-But, you _saved_ me." Jean insisted, unable to let it go. _'She did that like she's done it before... Like, she cared about me.'_ She reached out for the pale girl but she darted away, her eyes wide. "Listen, maybe you weren't ready before. But, Rogue I saw you. Now,"

"Ah'm_ sorry._.." Rogue began, holding Logan's stare a little too long. "Ah'm sorry, Ah can't!" She pulled away from Jean's grasp and fled. Jean went after her, but Logan caught her arm. Reluctantly.

"But, she..."

"I _know_, Red. I know. But she ain't ready, yet. Wish she was." The longer she was exposed to Mystique's depravity, the farther away she'd become. Kitty studied both their faces.

"She's totally on the dark _icky_ side, but... That was kind of like, cool of her. Definitely cool." She rubbed her arm, awkwardly.

"Ja, really cool." None of them had been able to defeat Fred on their own. They might not have been able to without her help._ 'How did she know...'_ Scott wondered. He pulled Jean closer to him, noting to troubled look on her face.

"I don't know. But, we definitely owe her. Big time."

* * *

The big field trip made it even clearer. Scott didn't sense animosity from the girl. Just defeat. Like she already knew what would happen if she could become an X-Man. "Ah know, about your trainin' courses. Everything. So _save it, _Summers." His mouth tugged down at the sides.

"You're right, that was in one of the programs. And I argued _agains_t it. Because, we can't be trying to recruit you and doing simulations that have you as our enemy. You_ saved_ Jean, Rogue. You're our ally. Our frien-" She jerked away from Scott's touch. It was all getting too hard to reject._ 'Ah already know, Scott.' _

"You jus' don't get it, Scott. Ah'm glad Jean's okay... But... But, you have to stay away from me." Tears streamed down her face in the bitter cold. Scott slowly pressed forward, his face concerned.

"Rogue, just tell me how I could help." He begged, his hands extended. No sooner did Mystique appear behind her, scowling. His mouth dropped open in shock.

"I _thought_ I told you to leave Anna Marie alone, Summers." She morphed quickly into Principal Darkholme, making his eyes go wide beneath his glasses. Rogue just hung her head, wondering how she would ever manage to stay by her side a second longer._ 'Before... Ah left. Ah finally stood up to her.'_ She reflected on that turning point in her first life. Mystique stomped forward. "If you want to pass highschool, let alone live... I suggest you do that."

"Why don't you let _her_ decide!" Scott shot back, recognizing a bully when he saw one.

"No, mama. Please..." His mouth hung open again. _'Mother...'_

"Rogue, don't do this. Whatever you think you need to do this for, you don't." Even without knowing her, he was so astute.

"It_ has_ to be this way. Ah have to see. C'mon mama. Let's just go. Ah'll... Ah'll stay away from the students of that school." Rogue tucked silver hair behind her ear. "Just... Just leave 'em alone." Rogue was the only mutant she cared about, anyways. She scoffed, Scott looking between them.

"Whatever. Come." Mystique had gotten what she wanted, Rogue's loyalty. She tugged her along, leaving Scott and the other students alone.

_-x-_

* * *

_For you to die, you would have to be forgotten. You skip through time, living over and over again. You are reborn. Eternal."_

* * *

What did anything matter? Apocalypse's resurrection was a crucial moment for the development and creation of sentinels. It would be an event used to justify them. But, the only thing keeping Rogue out of Mesmero's clutches _were_ the X-Men. Mystique was manipulated even easier, the artifacts were gathered and Rogue infiltrated the mansion with ease, acquiring her many abilities to transfer to En Sabah Nurr.

She was powerless to fight the mind manipulation, even with all her knowledge. And, Mystique was powerless to help her.

Apocalypse rose before Jean's powers had their first major manifestation. Way too early, the world learned about mutants. All of it. _'No...'_ She thought as the mummy gripped her arm, paralyzed in the same position.

It was just like before, except this time, she wouldn't be strong enough to survive it. _'Being with Mystique brings Apocalypse about faster, and we're not strong enough to win...'_ She thought, collapsing to the steps as he rose.

_"Is she alive? Oh no..."_

_"Somebody, help her!"_

_"Jean!"_

Logan crashed to Rogue's side, feeling unusually attached to the strange mutant girl. He certainly didn't want to see her die cold and alone. Not like this. In a tomb. "Hang in there kid," He demanded, peering into her eyes as everyone gradually got up. He tugged a shaking glove off, ready to touch her in a last ditch effort. Her skin was cold and inert. It was too late. Apocalypse had taken far too much from her.

"God, _damn it._" They hadn't made a plan for if they lost.

Rogue would have to try again.

* * *

_"If you can find it in you to survive, if you are worthy, then I will make you into something more than them. Something eternal." - Apocalypse _

_-x-_


	4. Chapter 4

_While you slept, the world changed_

* * *

-x-

_Charles stood, and the sky glowed amber. "Your gift... It will be for everyone." This Charles walks, and he is never without Cerebro. A portable Cerebro is always sitting atop his head, tapping him into the island's neural network. From the trees house jewels, the grass whispers to him. 'This is right. All is right.' Soon, the air is filled with whispers as they reach for him. Through golden pods lining the trees._

_As they were in life. Red hair. Red eyes. As familiar as Charles' own heart. With Cerebro serving it's full purpose. With The Five working together. As one. Mutants would stand until they got it right and corrected human's mistakes. The one with claws. And finally, the one with a shroud of silver. She's died, maybe for the last time. But, she lives again. _

_The sun rises, she takes a breath. She breathes again. 'I am. Ah'm Rogue.' They rise, naked in the sunlight. There is a before. Everything, but death. The mission continues. _

_"Never will we lose you, again." _

* * *

**_They also suggest that the future may be able to be manipulated, perhaps with mutant aid. _**_(reincarnation, prophesizing)_

**_*Mutants could potentially restart the mutant/human conflict until they win, humans are not to learn this information._**

_(pg. 197 of the Xavier Files) _

***CLASSIFIED INFORMATION******CLASSIFIED INFORMATION******CLASSIFIED INFORMATION******CLASSIFIED INFORMATION******CLASSIFIED INFORMAT**

* * *

_-x-_

* * *

Staying with Mystique fixed nothing. Rogue had to be more aggressive, or her entire race was doomed._ 'No pressure.' S_he thinks often, like a sick inside joke with herself. She doesn't remember dying, which is good. It would make this that much harder. Staying away from the X-Men was different, but what if she went to them and told them everything? Mystique's plans, Magneto, _and_ Apocalypse?

What could they accomplish without human persecution? With time to train and prepare, ahead of the curve. Rogue almost dares to feel optimistic, using her adolescence to plan and dream about what and how she would do it. When her powers manifest, she fled from Mystique and straight to Logan, the real Logan. It's a rainy night. She remembers the terror, Mystique manipulating her into fearing the whole team, her mind so scrambled she's not sure who she is.

_'Not this time.'_ He's moving slowly, thunder clapping overhead. The team's split up looking for the confused and hurt kid. Her powers are like none other he's ever heard of, and it makes him a little nervous. He'd rather her touch him than one of the young ones. He moves slowly, carefully. Tries to make himself as non-threatening as possible.

"Not gonna hurt ya, kid." He says, his hands held up. She looks so small and cold in the rain.

"A-Ah know." She shivers. _"L-Logan..."_ He goes as white as her makeup. '_How does she_-' "Ah need you to try to listen. Before Mystique comes, before anyone interrupts." Now, the former Weapon X project's heart is hammering. How much could one kid know? "When Ah _die,_ Ah come back." Silence. She hurriedly removed her glove. "When Ah _touch people, A_h take memories and their powers. A mutant with that power... Touched_ me_." His eyes are wide.

She looked at shaking, black fingernails. "Not for a while, but..." He frowned when her voice cracked. "We were close, once. It took a while, but Ah was one o'yall. We went through a lot together. Ah don't know how, Logan. But Ah'm supposed to _do_ something with these powers, stop something horrible from happening..." She's crying fully, now, her tears mixed into the rain. "If the professor can read those memories... Then maybe, we can prepare."

He barely understood what the girl meant, but he could smell that she meant it. And, it was true. But, she continued speaking. "Your bike's name is Lola." Now, he knew he wasn't dreaming. "Kitty's probably your favorite. You're worried, cause Sabretooth is around, but you don't know where. Or why. You're worried your baggage is gonna come back to haunt you, and ya keep it from everyone. You're afraid you don't belong at the school..." She hung her head, guiltily. _'Ah'm sorry, Ah need you to know this is real.'_

_"Stop."_ He half begged. He couldn't imagine what this girl had been through if this was all true. "We will find a way to help you, okay?" He held out a hand. "Just come with," He froze as spotlights shined down on them in the abandoned construction site. He snarled, moving in front of her.

"Freeze! I repeat, freeze! Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division, ordering the owners of these energy signatures to stand down." The hairs on the back of their necks stood up. This made no sense to either of them, they should've been virtually untraceable to even the highest clearance military divisions. Logan ushered the girl behind him, wondering what was going on.

The man snarled when he realized that Scott, Jean, Kurt, and Kitty had all been captured, already and behind enemy lines. A broad shouldered woman stood in front, honey colored hair twisted in a bun. When her eyes flickered yellow, they both began to understand. Feeling that Rogue would trust the X-Men, she snitched on them to the military to be spiteful and make sure they didn't get Rogue.

_'No, god DAMN it, momma...'_ Logan's claws were already out. These people, whoever they were. They meant business.

"Stay behind me." He ordered, shaking at the prospect of freeing everyone. She only frowned. This was rotted from the inside, thanks to Raven Darkholme. She might as well start over with an even _more a_ggressive approach. This was only getting more and more complicated to explain. Sighing, she rolled her sleeves up.

"Failure to comply will result in termination." She shut her eyes.

"Don't be a hero, Rogue." She almost laughed.

"Forgive me." She dashed out, flipping through a hailstorm of bullets while Logan began screaming. She managed to tackle Mystique, but it was only a matter of time.

_"Why, damn you!"_ Guns are firing.

"ROGUE,"

A shot rang out.

* * *

_She died dreaming of a portal. Flowers as far as the eye can see, and golden skies. A heaven. A place to dream of. _

_Time to try again._

_-x-_

**_"See the tower, the axis, the pillar of collapse and rebirth, the monolith of ascension..."_**

* * *

It would appear Rogue didn't know the meaning of the word "aggressive". She poured her heart out to Logan and the government took them out. But this time, Irene cannot see futures for her. _"She is between time! Against time!"_ Trying throws the mutant in fits. Rogue's working at a deficit, so she tells and demands everything of her mutant mother.

This approach works. She not only backs off, but with Irene's blessing, she's helping. Allowing Rogue to do whatever she needs to do and giving her the means necessary. Rogue's beginning to feel hope again. She hopes that's not what's fucking her up.

She's appeared on the doorsteps of the mansion herself after her powers manifest. She's shaking, standing in her long brown trench coat, olive green pants, and a black tank top. She goes to the knock when the door already opens, a statuesque red head waiting. They share an awkward, knowing smile. Jean's empathetic abilities are picking up on something Rogue doesn't have to say.

Logan and Scott are waiting.

"He's upstairs." The rough man grasps. Maybe, the deju vu is turning into leftover memories, the girl can't be sure. But, they are being awful trusting. Embarrassed, she tugged at her top and wondered why she's an early bloomer in every life. Charles is nervous, but excited. She still remembers the man like it was yesterday, he and Logan the closest things she'll ever have to a father.

"Rogue, I-"

_"Anna Marie._" She sighed, shaking. She had underestimated how much she'd miss him. All of them. Even the New Recruits. Bobby Drake, who'd tormented and annoyed her. And Jamie, who followed her like a puppy dog. And, her unrequited crush on Scott. Having to room with Kitty. Find she's related to Kurt. Watch Scott pick Jean. All of it, she'd do it all again. "Please."

"I have permission to read your mind?"

"Ah need you to read it _all,_ professor." Her grey eyes hardened, and somehow the bald man understood. "And then, _we_ need to get to work." Rogue needed to aggressively attack this problem. But, she unknowingly radicalized her professor.

* * *

_There was a dream. Our dreams are the same. While you slept, the world changed._

_-x-_

* * *

"_When you speak of mutants, speak softly and with proper deference. For_

_ we will be listening."_

* * *

Both Rogue and Charles slept for days after he took a plunge in her mind, and understood the breadth of of her memories. Their truth. What it meant. Maybe, there was no room for _his_ dream. For their cohabitation. How many times did Rogue have to die? Did all of them, in chains because of man's fears? He loved them all too much. After seeing Rogue's memories, he did not create a school. He created a legion. An army. A peaceful one.

A legion of evolutionary betters. He used his massive capital to quietly buy secluded land. Then, with Cerebro and his quiet plans, he located mutants and kept them a secret (learning the error of their ways from Rogue's memories). The X-Men generally let humans toil with their own problems. It was weird, but they suffered less. Lead more normal lives among their kind.

The Morlocks were quietly transported, living above ground for the first time. Soon, almost no mutants were with humans. Even Mystique and Magneto, the Brotherhood. Acolytes. The lived behind Xavier's walls. Walls impenetrable, untraceable by any human technology (thanks to Forge and few other technopathic mutants). This would be Rogue's hardest and most radicalizing failure.

She_ lived._ Almost ten years of peace. Learning amongst her people. Loving. Laughing. Crying. Spending the time she got to with her friends. Her team. Her kind. Growing their own culture and society, untangling themselves from the complex, human web they wanted no part of. Advancing far beyond they ever could in the old world. Humans had always othered them. Disowned them. What would happen if they just left?

Charles wanted to call it mutant-kind's 'Golden Age'. Undetected and largely not missing from their lives, he may have found a way to subvert his dream. Not to ask too much from the Cosmos.

Mutants lived in passivity. Even Apocalypse. Behind the walls, behind the fully realized and simulated environment they had little need or want with the human's earth. They had their own, undetected, slice of heaven. Peace. Forever. Rogue walked among more enemies than she'd ever imagined. Her kind. Kurt got his answers from Mystique. Magneto and Charles stood by one another. On the same side.

There was only peace, barely any fighting.

Morlock children hanging off Wolverine and Colossus. Sometimes, Rogue just cries... And Remy would hold her, beg to know why. And, she wouldn't even bother to explain. Because, everything was fine. It was okay, now. The answer was to hide away. To change the dream into a new one. Until _they_ came.

Then, Rogue began to understand that even her aggression was narrow-minded and pointless in the grand scheme of things. Even though mutants were hidden, not outed, and not waging war on humans, the sentinel fleets still came. Man hated them that much. Charles, Jean and Logan really understood how heartbreaking this was. Rogue's efforts had earned them a better end, but _still_ an end.

She almost collapsed against Remy and Kurt when they start breaching the walls, children crying. Ororo is white as her hair. "This is the technology from Wakanda... If they can breach it then, it's over. Everywhere..." They never dreamed Armageddon would look like this. Remy passed Rogue to Logan like a football. If she dies, this starts over. And, they don't know how many lives she's got.

But, she's thinking the opposite. This was a gift. A dream to live what she got of her life beside them. With them_. Cherishing_ them. Listening to Kitty talk way too much. Trying to take Jean's unsolicited advice. Always saying yes to extra Danger Room sessions with Logan, tennis matches with Scott, and movie nights with Kurt. Getting to knock Remy's walls down, letting him do the same. Knowing and being known.

Taking none of the professor's wisdom for-granted, even Magneto's. But, even in peace the sentinels came for them. Rogue would have to redefine aggression. She would arm another with her knowledge. But, the sentinels were pounding down their walls. Her grey eyes were staring into nothing.

"Stripe, we've gotta evacuate. We've planned for something like this, we'll rebuild." There's no starting over now that they understand. They don't trade lives. They can handle attacks. But, death sentinels... No. She only smiled, slipping her gloves off. In a few minutes, it'd all be gone.

_"Remember me in the next life."_ She whispered, kissing Kurt's bare forehead and knocking him out. Kitty began to scream, but it was too late. Rogue disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"ROGUE," Scott shouted, Jean collapsed at his feet. Logan tore past them, desperate to stop the girl from throwing her life away. She'd died enough for them, she didn't deserve this. She reappeared outside as fifty sentinels hovered above them. Holding a hand behind her to keep anyone from interfering, she stared up at the robots. She can hear the X-Men screaming behind her, but it doesn't matter.

_'Ah am the closest thing to eternal._' She will have to do the opposite of anything she'd ever do.

Mutant-kind is counting on her.

_"Termination in five... Four... Three... Two... One... Engage."_


	5. Chapter 5

_"Together, we fail. But together, we are tomorrow_

_\- Charles Xavier_

_-x-_

* * *

Rogue didn't know it, but she'd been radicalized by her death and rebirth. By her fears. Her pain. Her lack of understanding. She had to start thinking bigger than her own, painful world. Her plight was a sad one, but so very small compared to the rest of mutant kind. This wasn't about what she did in the narrative of her life. She needed to live a life completely unlike her others.

Even in peace, the humans would destroy them. Her childhood was filled with that pervasive thought. Everything they slaved and toiled for, built and lovingly created. Gone. One day, they would be found. Sought out by technology for no reason. She had to stop the technology from being_ created._ The machines were the event she needed to stop. Sentinels. Rogue was colic child, crying constantly under the weight of what she would have to do later in life.

But, she had time to plan. To plot. To sift through her memories and improve her plan of attack. Getting straight to Charles had almost done it. They had the collective power, knowledge, and ability. But, the human's ability to destroy what they didn't understand thwarted that. Apocalypse wasn't the catalyst for mutant issues, they were coming anyway. No matter what they did.

So, she grew to reject her mentor's words. Charles' words of peace, well intentioned and fatal, would not work. Not for her. She found Mystique as a child and told her everything, again. She trained her foster daughter to have the same marksmanship and training the shapeshifter possessed. Her words, words from another life, haunted her.

_"You don't belong with them! You'll never be an X-Man, Rogue. You were made to be much more."_

It always hurt she was right, even if she didn't know it.

When she turned fifteen she killed Mystique, absorbing as much of her shapeshifting ability to get the task done. Destiny couldn't see Rogue's future, but she saw_ hundreds_ of bleak ones.

With decades of spy and assassin training, the ability to shapeshift, and marksmanship that'd make Nick Fury cry, she took out the Stryker/Trask family lines. It was the only way she could see to spare her race. Even if it made her a demon. A devil. An affliction. Even if Charles would think she was as lost as Mystique, as Apocalypse. Lost to thinking bloodshed was the answer.

She stood on the clock-tower, her auburn hair in a knot atop her head. Silver bangs were tucked behind her ears as she aimed the machine gun. Grey eyes honed in through the scope. The girl never admired Mystique in other lives, but now she was jealous. To be anyone in the world was much more of a gift than she let on. She was the best spy in the entire would because she could become anyone, even those she killed.

When Logan caught on about her powers (touch, shapeshifting, assassin training) he took off to find her and neutralize her. She was far too powerful with the knowledge and abilities she'd amassed. But, she always slipped him. It was like she knew him better than he knew himself. Always one step ahead, one step over.

It almost made him proud.

She stood, all limb in her forest green catsuit, tears streaming down her face. White skin shining in the moonlight. She wasn't Rogue. She was the grim reaper. For all the enemies mutant of kind. Bolivar Trask died in his office that night. With his wife standing right there.

Donald was killed a week later, while she impersonated his Venezuelan secretary.

Gwyneth shot from a helicopter.

Simon died, murdered by who he thought was best friend. The entire Trask line, even innocent children. Rogue came to them all without mercy, with the same impassivity with which her mother did things. That she used to not understand. Every shot took a little more out of her, and when this inevitably failed and she died, she'd live with the feeling forever. She hated this life the most, feeling her humanity being bred out of her with each snipe. Rejecting the professor, the X-Men, her family each time.

Narrowly escaping death by Wolverine, one he's beginning to feel she deserves.

They don't know what they would do. She's stopped them. They just see violence. Panic. A villain. A Heartless. They don't know what she's been through. That she does it for _them._

Rogue bathed in the blood of these families. Families that would invent the end of an entire race. She had sold her soul and guaranteed it shouldered with an unconscionable weight.

But, even that wasn't enough. She'd broken into a research center when the towering fleet busted in. Purple and magenta, menacing her in every life. Destroyers of everything. Logan had come to slaughter the girl killing high profile, human, scientists. Now, he realizes that maybe they've both come to die. Ten years, he'd chased her and she's become a woman. One he would've killed with no effects on his conscience.

They have bigger fish to fry when the sentinel the size of a tower busts in, walking through everything like grass. Rogue broke a rule she never wanted to in her first life. Her _real_ life. She gave up everything she fought for and learned. All she could say she had, thrown away to save her people. And, it changed nothing. Logan hauled himself at the robot, even if it was pointless.

_"Futile mutants."_ The machine droned, aiming at them. _"Artificial intelligence is a discovery, not an invention."_ It lectured in a cold voice. Rogue glared, the rocket launcher on her shoulder. This life was over. Even war did not yield better results. Fires raged in the lab as Wolverine fought for a way to dismantle the robot. His claws bounced like plastic. "_You have been trying to stop us from being created, right mutant?"_

Blood dripped into Rogue's eyes and down her face. The sentinels were mocking her now, as Logan stopped fighting and turned to the woman. Someone he should care about_. 'Trying to stop sentinels...' _Now, her ruthless and impeccable assault made sense if they were supposed to be responsible for this.

Much like mutants were inevitable, so did the death machines seem. They emerged, despite Rogue's best efforts. No matter what it was she did. If the Bolivars and the Strykers were gone, some_ other_ human would burn their hands pushing the limits of technological advancement and doom them all. Removing specific humans didn't solve things because more would rise to replace them.

Logan fell to the ground, more muscle and sinew than skin. Twitching. Rogue stared at death as the sentinel prepared to fire. She was afraid. She was fucking pissed. Angry. Livid. Screaming. More animal than human, at this point. She crossed the point of no return and had nothing to show for it. She had meant to keep her hope, the belief that she could see what others_ couldn'_t. Do what other's can't.

But this death was too painful. When Rogue died, crying beside a Wolverine that hated her, her hope of ever overcoming human's hate did with her.

She thought she'd been radicalized before, but now Rogue understood the meaning of the word. Hate and anger was not enough. She had to be smart with her gift. After one of these horrid lives, she wasn't coming back.

* * *

_-x-_

_"You must see by now there is no you and I, only us. _

_We are together. Or we are nothing."  
-** Professor Charles Xavier**_

-x-

* * *

Her next life she found herself at the feet of Charles' rival and once friend.

Magneto.

He was as impressed by her skills as he was off-put by them. She was stronger than they had all anticipated if she'd made it to his hidden, metal dome base in the middle of the desert. Not even Charles and his machinery could detect him. So, how did the girl find him and what did she want? Everybody wants something, if the man's learned anything, it's that. And with the voracity she's searched for him, she wants something badly.

She's standing in a black catsuit draped in a giant, green shirt. Shaking, in front of him. She's only sixteen, and she wants nothing more than to run into the arms of the X-Men. But, she already knows how that goes. She clutches her hands tight, her eyes stinging with tears. She's died enough times to know she_ has_ to do this.

"What have you come here for, girl." He says finally, unable to tell if she was dangerous or not. She was awfully puny, but he saw centuries in her eyes. Something was amiss. He studied her, carefully.

_"Erik Lensherr._" His eyes hardened, and Rogue felt the metal in the base shake. She forced a hard look. "Or,_ should_ Ah say..." She stood on lanky legs, tugging her green cloak around her. "Number 132256. _Max Einhardt."_ She screamed out when the metal whipped around him. Wires and cables ripped right out of consoles, and wagged at her like weapons. Tentacles. Not even _Charles_ knew his slave name. Before he lived his truth.

"Raven has told me of your ability to steal memories and mutant powers. Are you _in my mind_ as well?" The thought of being stalked by a telepath more powerful than Charles frightened him. But, this seemed like something more. His voice was even but the metal shook, even in his control. She sagged. If only that were her problem.

"No mind games." She winced as the metal rattled. "Ah bring you information." The items were no more steady in her grasp. "For all of us. You need to listen." Now, the man's hand was shaking as he pointed it out to her. Nobody knew Max Einhardt. Only Erik Lensherr. And, he knew this conversation was only about to get deeper. "Ah'm not readin' your mind. Ah have your _memories._"

Slowly, the metal settled on the ground around them. "You've never made contact with me before this moment." He watched from his purple cape as she took a deep breath.

"Would ya believe in a mutant whose power was to live, even_ after_ they'd died?" Coal black eyes went even wider._ 'She wants me to find them.'_

"I would want that mutant on my side." His words are barely a whisper. He pressed closer as she met his eyes.

"That mutant, they touched _me._" He was crossing over to her now, his mind already working with possibilities. This mutant was a god, and if she had this power than she'd lived other lives. And, could tell him what happened. Charles, the military... Nobody could stop him with that power. Knowledge. He reached for the girl and she winced.

"Do you know what you are saying..." He has thought of everything, any thing his tortured mind can, but never something like this. This could change everything. He wanted to carve a space for mutants to thrive, but with her aligned with him and no one else, he can forge a kingdom.

"Get Wanda out of the psych ward. She don't belong to be in there." Maybe the girl did, but they'd all learned what the result of abandoning her would be. A whole lot of trouble, later. He almost strikes her when she mentions his daughter. She was the spitting image of Magda, the only woman he'd ever loved. It was not without a heavy heart or conscience he left her there after the twins' lost their mother. But, she was inconsolable. And, very powerful. "We're gonna need her for what we do."

He didn't deny that. It was only a matter of when he could handle her. The girl could make it better, or make it ten times worse. "How do you know she will cooperate?" Rogue only snorted. She never cooperated.

"Ah don't. But, Ah ain't ya daughter. And, Ah'm not heartless either. You _get_ my knowledge when you free her and start fixing that." His eyes narrowed into slits, but she knew he'd do anything to know what she did.

"Fine, you keep her in line. I will have work to do." He turned and his cape flashed around him, leaving Rogue standing in the dark.

* * *

With Rogue's knowledge of many lives he outsmarted Charles' efforts. He undercut some of his recruiting, too. With more prosperous words instead of his previous rhetoric. He announced mutant superiority, his display and Wanda's controlled power forcing some who were originally X-Men to become Acolytes. He begged for peace, for humans to let things alone. To let him form Genosha and take his people there, be responsible for it. And, in turn, they would stay out of human affairs.

The X-Men rushed the scene in a frenzy, Charles trying to persuade his friend to do otherwise. _'Erik! You know not what you do!' _Crowds had gathered as Magneto made a spectacle of floating light posts.

"Whoa..." Kitty screams from the ground, Bobby filling in the spot that Rogue's absence has left. "Are they_ both_ his daughter?" She and Jean are staring at the sky in wonder. Something felt a little weird, for some reason. Wanda, his short haired daughter is goth, much like the girl with the white streaks. Charles found her with Cerebro, but she disappeared. By their nemesis' side is where she'd been. Scott shook his head._ 'Why... No!'_

She was standing, in a dark green, hooded catsuit. She and the girl draped in red exchanged glances.

"Listen to her truth, Charles. She knows more than you or I, I promise."

_'Erik... This is not the way!'_

"Fear us... Revere us..." Rogue tried to avoid Kurt's lingering stare as the sky glowed purple above them. "But _do not cross us_, human kind. For the dawn of a new era is now!" The news reporters standing around are much too shocked to speak, unaware of the existence of anything like this. "We will have a home, we will not let you send death to us."

"_I don't know, Carl. This man is making some sort of declaration!"_ Says a baffled reporter, shaking as Magneto levitated cars.

"What the_ fuck_ are those?" Wanda says, managing to sound bored as unidentified flying vehicles began showing up. Humans in spy uniforms, super powered individuals who didn't consider themselves mutants. Rogue begins to panic as she realizes they are outmatched. Even those who believed in Rogue's lives and Magneto's words are not enough to stand up against every secret military faction AND the X-Men.

Not the Avengers and the X-Men. No matter what Rogue had seen, they didn't change how Magneto's words sounded without the knowledge. Not to all of them.

"No, _just listen!_ All of you!" Rogue screamed, wrenching against Wanda's arms. The taller girl had never seen the silver haired mutant freak out like this. It weirded her out how her father listened to her above everyone else. They're covered in soot, now. They're uniforms torn. No body leaves this battle unscathed. X-Men and Avengers litter the ground. "The machines, they will kill all of us! Mutants and humans!" Rogue screams out as the military arrives.

"Your truth did not change _my vision_, Rogue." Magneto says, his eyes shining desperately. "It gave me more means to execute it." His eyes darkened. "But, there will always be those who _won't agree._ Even with what you know!" He cried, staring into Scott's face.

"If Ah just _tell them!_" Rogue screamed, Captains shouting orders.

"It's over, Rogue." Wanda hissed, wondering why she had suddenly been accompanying her father everywhere. The X-Dweebs had sold them out, how she always knew they would. None of them had the balls to do what her father was doing. Erik hadn't even had the time to accomplish anything. They hadn't made it to Genosha, they didn't try to carve a place in the world from Magneto's perspective.

_'This isn't right!'_ She thought, pulling from Wanda to fun forward. "Jean, quick. _Read my mind_!" Scott looked at her skeptically, but Jean hesitantly obeyed. She screamed upon trying, finding her mind impossibly condensed. Filled with real, organic, memories and entirely too many._ Lives_ worth. Plural. Jean was moaning in the chaos, and Scott was instantly by her side.

"What's the matter, talk to me?" He demanded in concern. Kitty and Kurt teleported from their sides while Bobby iced overhead.

_"Scott,"_ She panted, her eyes practically bulging out of her head. "H-Her memories..."

"Spit it out, red." Logan snapped, running low on patience. He sliced through metal debris.

"We're_ in_ them. A bunch of them. They're real but... They've never happened." Scott screwed an eyebrow. _'What is happening?'_

"Like... She's lived multiple lives? Jean, that doesn't make sense..." Scott mostly mumbles, trying to figure out what she meant.

"I know, Scott... Bu- YOW. It _hurts_ to try to read her mind..." She rubbed her temple gingerly. "That's never happened before..." She was right, it hadn't. But, they didn't know what it meant. They watched in horror as she pulled away from Magneto and Wanda and ran, bullets and lasers flying. "Hey,_ wait!"_ Jean screamed, Scott and Logan holding her back. The girl suddenly had a death wish. As she peered deeper into her stuffed mind, she began to realize her death was the abrupt end of each cluster. '_What?'_

_'What am Ah supposed to do...'_ Rogue thought, tired of getting shot. Incinerated. Murdered. Was this her sixth life? How many more were left? What could she do differently? Growing into an assassin didn't stop humans from fearing them. Hating them. Destroying them. She remembered after Apocalypse, even after saving Ellis Island from Magneto's plot in her first life. They_ still_ hated them.

And, they would hate them in this one. Fear them. Destroy them. The only thing above Magneto she could think to appeal to was Apocalypse, and the thought squeezes her chest in a vice_. 'No... Please. Anything but that.'_ The Moira in her mind says she'd be lucky to have more than one life left at this point. Some lasted years, others ended before she could get a start. Everything she'd done, lived, and fought to stop she would not go and arm him with her knowledge. _Would she?_

She stood with open arms to the soldiers, the X-Men watching in shock. It was time to start over. She didn't fear death, not anymore. She feared failure. She feared the absence of more chances. _ 'I will forget!'_ Magneto realizes, reaching for her.

"Rogue!"

_'This isn't right. Ah have to... Ah have to try again.' _

* * *

_-x-_

_"If you can find it in you to survive, if you are worthy, then I will make you into something more than them. Something eternal." - Apocalypse_


	6. Chapter 6

_"I am immortal, and I have no end." - Apocalypse_

_-x-_

* * *

Rogue had more than a bad feeling that she had been born into her last life. It almost brought her solace, that she wouldn't have to go through this again. Maybe, she'd greet something beyond this life, maybe be blessed with nothing at all. She'd never known peace in life, none of them. She could only assume in comparison, death would be a prize. In this life, her visions were more violent. More clear. More urgent. Planets turned into dirt mound breeding pits. Rubble the only relics of homosapien & superior efforts to thrive.

Giving birth to screaming, deformed babies that were once mutants. Were once human. People. Bred into monsters. Mr. Sinister would outlive them all (some iteration of him) and he will use the universe as a playground to experiment on. She saw strange mutants with powers like her friends. A metamorph, with the genes Piotr and skin of shining metal. A two fingered teleporter, his skin red like blood. Even when the world was lost. Multiple worlds, mutants still fight.

In these glimpses of the future, she saw Apocalypse standing with the last remaining members of her race, a sword at his side. Rogue hadn't had visions this clear in her other lives. She only saw brief glimpses. This one was screaming at her what to do. She needed to arm Apocalypse with what she'd experienced. Learned. Lived. That his initial plan would radicalize humans against mutants long_ after_ his failure. He was the only one with the power to change the mutant condition, and she would have to make him.

Rogue was almost certain that if she let her life passively progress to the point Apocalypse stole her, that would be her chance. If this was her last life, she could at least live it the same. Maybe, a little smarter. A little softer. A little more grateful. And, with a goal in mind. Something she was training for, knowing what lied ahead.

Scott always said she hit the Danger Room like it was their enemy. Well, she knew where all their hard efforts were about to get them.

_-x-_

_"Stripes?_" Someone had draped a green blanket around the girl as she sat on the porch, watching her breath turn into fog. Logan had appeared with two, steaming cups of coffee or hot cocoa in his hands. His mouth his pressed in a grim line as he forces his face even. Ever since the kids fought the Juggernaut, the girl's been a little more spacey and solemn than usual. Lost in her thoughts, it was concerning him and the others. Like time was slipping through her hands.

There was a melancholy he couldn't place, a finality. Something that seemed to rip the girl from present moments all the time. He was dying to know what it was, but nobody had figured out how to get the girl to share. Share more than she wanted to, anyways. A wide smile spread on dark lips as she reached up to gratefully accept. He smiled uneasily and parked beside her, staring out into the distance.

"The others are all watchin' a movie, Rogue. They were askin' about ya." She took a hearty sip and let the warmth fill her small body. Black coffee. He always knew what she needed.

"Oh, Ah guess Ah lost track of time." She hugged herself.

He grunted, his coffee steaming into the night air. "Seems to happen a lot these days, everything okay? Somethin' on your mind?" Of course, everything was on her mind. Even worse with the Juggernaut crammed in there. She just grimaced and dropped her eyes to the frosted ground.

"Nah. Ah mean, no more than usual." He frowned at that. They all had the world on their teenage shoulders, but maybe her most of all. "Jus'... Thinkin, Ah guess." The Canadian mutant nodded, studying her without studying her. She had the ability to carry herself so much older than she was, someone who'd been around forever. Like him. Or, at least lived a lot of lives.

Logan grunted and finally sipped his bitter drink. "Be more concerned if you weren't. Like you kids don't have enough to worry about. It'll be okay though, Rogue. We've got ya, now." His gentle and astute words made her eyes tear, instantly. Would this be the last life she heard them? That's what it was beginning to feel like. "Whatever's comin', whatever you or anyone has to face. We face it,_ together._" She batted non-commitally to her eyes.

"Ah know," She sniffed, forcing herself to sound defensive. "Ah... Don't want to think about it, or worry. For that reason. Ah..." She looked up at the numerous stars blanketing the skies. "Ah just want to enjoy it. For as_ long_ as we can..." She almost whispered. He placed a gnarled hand on her shoulder, the emotions he smelled driving him a little batty.

"Let's go finish the end of that movie and then we'll go for a ride." He flashed her a goofy, uncharacteristic smile and she laughed. These were the moments she never appreciated enough the first time around. And, Logan was more telling her than asking like he was known for. He pulled the slender girl to a stand and started into the mansion.

"Sure, Logan." She cast a look out onto the lawn. "Let's go."

* * *

_** Cerbro  
**__**Version Build 2**_

_Originally powered by a Shi'ar anti-matter machine, the current build now runs of Krakoan No-Place vents, modifications made on the machine after Charles Xavier becomes aware of the mutant power of reincarnation. This technology was harnessed and built by forge, using other Shi'ar technology as endless sources of storage and power and changed the nature of Cerebro's purpose._

_A back-up storage of scanned mutant's minds._

_-x-_

* * *

Mesmero still came for Rogue, but he died in the tomb. Mystique and Rogue had talked about this day a long, long time ago. Mystique stared at the key she was supposed to fit, certain it would bring her doom.

"Your team, they will arrive soon." She says, not looking at her adoptive daughter shrugged in a big sweater and winter jacket. "They will do anything to stop you from going with him. Make it count, daughter. Make us proud." Rogue watched as she transformed into stone, not uttering a sound. The wind blows in the crypt and she pushes onward, knowing Apocalypse awaits her.

If he doesn't listen to her he could waste her last chance to stop what was coming for all of them. Death. Pain. Extinction. The thought of trusting Apocalypse with anything makes her sick, but Logan would be there soon. With Remy, and Sabretooth. Then, the others. She'd been dreading this day since she formed in her mother's womb. After everything she'd been through, she would cry to the First One for mercy. For a blessing.

It felt surreal to be in his pyramid with full control of herself. This moment had changed everything in her first life. Almost past a point of no return. She shook in her stupid coat and the ugly sweater she loved so much. The pink one Scott gave to her. It was the warmest garment she owned. Time is slipping through her fingers. Logan is right on her heels, he was the first thing she saw when she came to.

The mummified mutant is glaring right at her, probably wondering why she wasn't under control._ 'A lot of reasons...'_ She thought, a her heart hammering in her chest.

_"Child..."_ He groans, seemingly exasperated by Rogue's fight for existence.

"You need to listen." Rogue shut her eyes tight, silver strands of hair falling in her her face. "We don't have much time." His hand is already struggling for her, but she's right outside his reach. "Ah've lived my life. Over and over. Ah'm reborn, and humans find a way to build something that destroys us_ all_ in every life..." She clutched her gloved hands tight, starting to hear yells in the distance behind her. "Even you."

"Yes, like Moira." Rogue looks up from the dust covered ground in shock. Moira is standing there, draped in clothes patterned like En Sabah Nurr. _'What?'_ He sat up with great effort as Rogue looked in between them. She can't help but be overtaken by rage. This was all her fault, _her_ nightmare that she thrust on the unsuspecting X-Man. She still feels Mystique's shot in her chest. Blood filling her lungs with every breath.

"Her... She's the one who did this to me. _Why_?" She just stared right through her.

"Maybe... Your lives together will tell me what I need to do. What the others_ haven't_ done." Rogue shivered as his shriveled fingers reached for her.

"ROGUE," Logan has clawed his way to the tomb, desperate to save the girl from this fate. He's running, frantic to stop the ancient mutant from taking her powers. "NO!" He hears the rest of the team finally arriving behind him. But, no matter what he does, he's not gonna be fast enough. Apocalypse grips her arm tight and Rogue begins to scream as everyone arrives.

"Jean, HURRY!" When the Egyptian mutant realizes how many memories are crammed into the girl's mind, he grunts in concentration. When the powers are attained he rises beside Moira, the professor halted in horror of her presence._ 'How could she be here before we...' _

"No... What are_ you_ doing here?" He couldn't have dreamed this in his worst nightmares. "M-Moira..."

The X-Men, Brotherhood, and Acolytes are flying in a frenzy. Kitty and Kurt flying overhead, Magento making the whole pyramid shake. But, none of it matters when Apocalypse raises from his tomb.

_"All of your lives have shown me a truth."_ Instantly, all opposing him as sent crashing to their feet. Moira doesn't flinch, even as Charles flips from his wheelchair. Logan's stirring first, in awe of the mutant's sheer might. He checks on Rogue hurriedly, hoping she was still breathing. When she twitches and tries to sit up, he screams angrily at her. There's no way she should be on her feet right now, not the way she just screamed. _"And, the truth often hurts."_

Hank tries to sit up and Evan tries to rouse his aunt. "Settle down," He snarls, his eyes on the world's first mutant. "You can't take him on anymore than they can." Jean's moaning, her entire mind feeling crushed by Apocalypse's wave. Rogue leaned one arm defiantly, her eyes locked on the Scottish woman lost in the fray.

"A truth that the only solution to the conundrum our race faces is evolutionary dominance, and not even in the way that I had envisioned it. In a way, that means so much more." Charles was leaning up, gaping in horror.

"No! You can't!" He waved his hands around him, fallen X-Men and Acolytes watching in horror.

_"I see all the ways. All the futures. All the pasts, now with these lived lives in them. I must claim forever before this world can be born again."_ He looked to Moira._ "The right way. The only way."_ Logan and Charles slowly begin to realize their stares are fixated on Rogue. "_That will mean many losses. Short-term and longterm._" Now, the titan changes his stare to Charles and Magneto. "_You have seen what ways must go before we rebuild, anew."_

Moira looks troubled, but she nods in agreement. Her fists are clenched. Rogue looks around her as more idols sprout from the ground, spears pointed at the at Erik and Charles.

"PROFESSOR!" Scott screams, trying to fight to his feet despite being battered. "No, I _won't let you!"_

_"Their ways have failed. We must go beyond this time. Their time."_ Rogue's shouting, Logan trying to wrangle her in his arms before she hurts herself. She would follow Apocalypse into hell, but she wouldn't watch harm come to Charles, not after the chance he took on her._ "We must give mutant kind a shot, and that will require sacrifice. Pain. Truth. This is our truth. We must fight through thorns if we seek the rose, the bloom of our success."_

Magneto groaned, summoning all the metal and ore in the pyramid he could. This was his last stand.

"You would let him hurt Charles?" She hissed, trying to force Moira to look into her eyes. "_Moira!"_ She was supposed to love him. She was supposed to be the love of his life.

"If it's the only way, he would _understand,_ lass." Charles looked between the two as they talked over his head.

"Moira, Rogue. Please!" Rogue struggled from Logan's grasp and stood, shakily on her feet. Maybe, she achieved nothing. But, she would be sent to Valhalla standing beside her team and real family. The X-Men. They would always understand that.

"Ah won't hurt him. Ah don't care what it means. We can find a way." Apocalypse himself had come behind Xavier's walls, before. They could unify again. They had to. "Tell them,_ tell them all_ what we know. They won't be able to stop us all..."

_"Time is very precious."_ The Egyptian mutant booms. _"I already must achieve forever, in perfect detail."_ He gestured to the huddled mass of mutants before them, cowering. "_They will hinder that. And, we are very much on borrowed time. Moira's end nears as well."_ Logan snarled from the ground, forcing himself to heal faster when he reaches a large hand to Rogue's face. _"No matter what happens to me, little one... You. You will be eternal. Join us in orchestrating history, Rogue. You will get your precious professor back. One day."_ A tear slid down her face, how pointless this all seemed. She was nowhere different than when she died on the lab's floor.

_"No. Ah won't do it. There's been enough pain and death."_ Moira and Apocalypse look at each other, both ignoring Charles' increasingly frantic cries. Apocalypse sighed, while Moira covered her face. "Not him." The ancient mutant shook his head.

"Have her lives taught you anything?" The woman asks, burning under the children's stares. The Egyptian behemoth nodded.

_"A great deal. Maybe, her struggle wasn't in vain. I will try to make it so for all my children. Our pain will be rewarded with prosperity, this I promise."_ Logan roared as the giant Anubis' spear pierces Rogue's chest. She doesn't flinch, she stands unafraid to die. She's done it so many times. _"My truth, your truth. All truth is pain, Rogue. But, they will sing songs and write stories. For you and Moira. The ones who lived many lives."_

It all clicked in Logan's head. Her spaciness, the vague things he pulled out of her sometimes. Moira was a_ mutant._ Her ability was to reincarnate. And, she'd given Rogue that ability by touch. She'd been living her life over and over._ "NO,"_ He caught her as she collapsed to the ground, her skin white as a sheet. Rogue opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. "Stripe, hold on. It'll be fine." He's wiggling out of his glove so he can transfer his healing factor, but she's fading fast. "I'll heal you." He sees the futility in her eyes, though. She's done this over and over, quietly trying to fix the world without them ever knowing.

_"Logan..."_

"Why didn't you _tell us?"_ He begs. It feels like it's just them two, trapped in some dark dungeon. The world's beginning to fade around her. Rogue can't sense much of anything, anymore, her fingertips going numb. _'Ah'm sorry...'_ Is all she can think. Moira, Mystique, and Destiny all trusted her to do something very important. And, she'll die knowing she failed. "Why didn't you tell us, Rogue? We would've helped you... We would've, why didn't you tell us? Why didn't_ you tell us? Why didn't you..."_

This was different. This wasn't like how her last lives ended._ 'No...'_ She thought, Logan fading from her sight. Everything melted into darkness._ 'No... Please. One more chance...' _

* * *

**_"It's not a dream if it's real. It's real if you say it's real."_**

_-x-_

* * *

"Why didn't you_ tell us,_ kid?" Logan groaned in the med-bay, anchored at a hospital bed. He hadn't left the white banged girl's side since they brought her back from Scotland, unconscious. His hand was clasped in her virtually colorless one, blue veins shining through her skin. Hank was working furiously with her other arm, his usual banter absent in the wake of the her serious condition. He was writing notes down and attaching different IVs to her while machines beeped.

"She's a six on the Glasgow scale, Logan..." He admits regretfully, knowing silence will only drive the man madder. But, he would not tolerate anything less than the truth. He didn't need to be told how bad it was, she'd absorbed his healing factor. They had no idea what transpired on Muir Island. The lab was in flames and she was found incapacitated and in dire condition. She was burning hot to the touch, and neither Charles nor Jean could sense her mind. In fact, Jean had been repelled, physically into the wall.

It was like her body was overclocked, processing everything, all at once. They'd be lucky if she survived through the night. "I am doing everything I can, my friend_. Whatever_ this is," He clapped a hand on Logan's shoulder and caught his eyes. Tears shined behind the blue man's, as well. "She is _fighting_ it. She hasn't given up hope, neither shall _we_." Logan chanced a glanced at her face, terrifyingly still for such an animated girl. "Once Charles has rested enough, he will keep at it. We will not stop trying, Logan."

He tried not to sigh. "I know. I'm scared, Henry. She's... She's far away." He couldn't explain it, but before he could sense her spirit during other close calls. Her presence. Whatever it was. Now, he perceived the same emptiness as the telepaths. The blue mutant cast a disconcerted glare at her white bangs.

"It takes a brave man to admit that. I'll check with Charles, see if he's up to scanning her again." The wild man put his head in his hand, saying a silent prayer for the girl's health. _'I'll give anything... Do anything, if-'_ He felt her fingers twitch in his grasp, certain he's making it up with wishful thinking. The second time he's certain. She's moving. Hank had just reported her in a deadly coma. But, one thing he knows better than to do is underestimate her.

Scott knocked in the doorway, his brow furrowed in knots. His skin is flushed, and if Logan could see his eyes, there'd be bags under them. A mile long. He isn't sleeping. Logan can tell that by the tiredness his girlfriend's wearing. "Hey, Logan. Is... There any change or news? We're kinda running out of room in the infirmary." He placed in hands in the pockets of his slacks, determined not to be fidgety.

"I think so, slim. Go get elf and Dr. Hank." Scott's mouth dropped when Rogue flinched, and then seemed to hiss in pain. The professor had told them in very many, nice words that their friend might not get better. And, whatever happened, they would get through it. _"Hurry!_" His growl prompts his feet to move, his girlfriend inquiring in his head what the spike in emotions was about.

_'Logan says there's a change.'_ He responded, tearing through the corridors. _'A change in Rogue's condition!'_ Despite being exhausted by the unrest and worry floating around the institute, Jean rose to her feet in another room. She unhooked from Kitty and Kurt and set her face despite their worried looks.

_'I'll see if I can help.' _Her mind was raw, if at all possible. She and the professor had never encountered such a resistance to probing. One that was painful, even physical. The knot under her fiery hair proved that. Whatever was going on, she hoped they were ready for it. She leaned against the doorway in one of Scott's oversized, white shirts. If she were holding something, she would've dropped it.

She screamed in surprise when she saw Rogue sitting up, gazing at Logan in wonder. Minutes ago, Charles had pulled Jean aside to talk about bereavement and how the school and team would handle it if they had to. Now, her teammate was reaching out with a hand, touching Logan's whiskers with wonder.

_"S-Stripe,"_ He whispered, not even thinking about her being mentally decompensated. Or, maybe she's lost her memories. Another psyche could be manifesting instead of her own. His heart skyrockets and he grabbed a hold of her gloved hand. "R-Rogue, talk to us. That you?" Tears spring to her eyes as Jean tries to decide if she should search the girl's mind.

_'No, Jean. I'm on my way. Let Hank and I assess her, first.'_ She doesn't respond, her mouth covered as the intense feelings swirl in the room.

"H-How did Ah wake up _here?_" Her voice is shaking when he braces her shoulders. "I-Is this real?" He almost laughs.

"Course it is, Rogue. You're back. You woke up." The permanent hell she'd been living hadn't been a coma dream, she knew that. The memories, all her lives stuck to her mind like tar... She rubs her head, trying to sort her racing mind. It's all too much to say at once. "Hank's gonna check you out, and when you're up to it he'll let the others see you." He eyed her wearily.

Both he and Jean sensed a mounting panic, not a fading one. "Try to relax," The red head urges. "You're _okay_, now. We almost lost you."

"The professor... Ah... Ah have to_ tell him._ Warn him," Logan ushered her back into the bed.

"And, you will. Once we make sure you're okay." They weren't sure if it was the anxious ramblings of a former coma patient, or a real threat that had her terrified. But, when Logan caught stormy, emerald eyes he knew they were about to find out.

* * *

_AN: To anyone who's read, left a comment, or favorited: thank you from the bottom of my heart! Thanks for reading and thanks for believing in me, I don't think I've ever had a more ambitious idea in mind. If you're a fan of the layout/lore/or content in this story, it's my best attempt to adapt the current new comics House Of X and Powers Of X to an EVO world. (I highly, highly, recommend reading! They're breathtaking stories that are giving a whole new life to the current X-Men continuity). _

_If I could say anything about where this story is going or where I want it to go, this is a story with no fat. Everything in it, how little or how much it says (i e, the abstract formatting and definitions), they all mean things and are there for a reason. *If you think I'm neglecting a story drop a message or a comment and I'll do my best. Ciao!_


	7. Chapter 7

-x-

**"It's not a dream if it's real, Charles."**

_"It's time to wake up..." _

_-x-_

* * *

"Charles... He will be here in just a moment." Hank stared down at Rogue's translucent skin in astonishment. He'd been praying for her himself, but she'd woken up from a coma like it was no more than a cat-nap. In all his studying, he'd never seen anything like it. He was too glad to ask too many questions. This was all nothing short of a miracle, and the girl has had a few. "Any worrying symptoms, notes... If you have an itch,_ Rogue._.." He looked at her seriously. "I want to hear about it." He studied skin like marble, devoid of makeup.

She and Logan can see eyes peaking through the door and muffled yells in the room outside. "My head hurts..." She mumbled hoarsely, still stunned by this last life that's started at a weird time. Not her stranger of a mother's womb. It was all like a long, lucid dream. But, the dream didn't fade away. In fact, the longer Rogue sat beside Logan, the more clear they came.

Human aggression would orchestrate more than sentinels and hard times for mutants, they started the end of the _world._ She walked away with so much more than that. She had decades worth of her own lives stored in her mind, the memories of others were no longer a problem. Moira's touch had changed her, forever. "To be expected," Hank murmured, feeling her pulse through gloved fingers. "Can you recall what happened on Muir, Rogue? Regardless of how you are now, we found you in a coma. A very serious one."

Logan leaned forward, using all the discipline he had to not pop claws. He smelled only Moira and cinder, and even he didn't want to believe that she'd brought harm to one of Xavier's children. Either way, once he knew he was going to handle it.

"Too much to say..." She really needed someone to pull it out of her fatigued brain. "Charles or Jean, they need-"

"They couldn't get _into_ your mind, kid." Logan's tone is casual, but Rogue can see the anxiety in his jittery leg. He's aged a year worrying for her, wondering if he was gonna lose one of these X-Men on his watch. "Red, in fact it threw her against the wall when she tried." He scratched the back of his head in discomfort and then shoved his hand in jacket pockets.

"Against the wall?" Rogue looked down to a massive, sweat soaked X-Shirt someone had draped her in a long time ago. She tucked her hair behind her ear.

"Never seen anything like it, Anna." Hank says, his brow furrowed as he grips his clipboard. Even his massive mind wasn't sure why such a thing occurred. She rubbed her head.

_"Ah..."_

"Okay, professor. Just please, be careful. There's no telling if it'll happen again." Jean cautioned worriedly beside the bald man's side.

"I just w-" They take care to shut the door on inquiring minds outside.

_"Rogue,"_ Charles gasps. He's so relieved he could cry, convinced he would be responsible for what happened. "I can't tell you how glad I am that..." He buries his face in his hands and Jean kneels solemnly beside him. She can feel his intense relief and lingering anger and shame at jeopardizing one of his first students. One who trusted him, implicitly, and would walk through flames for.

"There, there." Jean sighs, her face pulled tight as the feelings bounce around the room.

"P-Professor. Ah-" A pain wracked Rogue's head and she cried out.

_"Easy,_" Logan half growled.

"It's alright, Rogue." Charles insisted, chuckling slightly. The girl hated rest and recuperation, always had. "You've been through an extraordinary trauma. Allow your mind and body to rest." His brow furrowed. "Please."

_'But, what about-'_ Jean starts.

_'She must rest, Jean. Look at her.'_ Something about Charles' head voice was final. Jean had not been successful at breaching her mind, but she had seen a brief glance. A glimpse of what Rogue was trying to articulate. And, it'd sent her into hysterics. This, coupled with a visit from Charles' strange friend, (the one whose lab Rogue had nearly died in), Jean was beginning to feel freaked out herself.

She tried to shake the collect screams of thousands of mutants from her mind. _'Yes. Right.'_ Rogue shared her urgency. Something had to be done. Whatever he could take away from all her lives, fuck her health.

"Professor... S-Somethin' happened." He nodded patiently, he was sure she had so much she wanted to try and say. And, they needed to hear. But, her health came first. Tears glittering behind her eyes, she reached for the man's wrist. It effectively communicated how freaked out she was, Rogue reserved her rare touches, especially with him. "A-Ah_ need_ you to read my mind, professor. It can't wait." She's shaking and Jean places a hand on her shoulder, looking deep into grey eyes.

"Someone on Muir know you were comin'? _After_ you? I'll take care of 'em, Rogue. You're safe, now." The look in Logan's eye is nothing short of homicidal. The silver haired girl only whimpered. This was worse.

_"Please,_ Charles." Rogue looked into his eyes. "Ah won't get it right with words, you gotta-" He rubbed over the glove, gently._ 'Poor thing,'_ He can't help but think. _'How scary it must've been.'_

"I will, Rogue. I will. Once you get a clean bill of health." The eyes in the room fell on Hank.

"You need a day or two of rest, dear. The period after a coma _requires_ that. Then, get your mind probed all you want. If your psyches relapsed under my care, I'd never forgive myself." Hank tipped the glasses on the bridge of his nose for emphasis. Rogue sighed, wishing she was the psychic who could show them all that this was way past fussing over her. She didn't know what they needed to be doing, but they needed to be doing it.

"B-But, Ah-"

"You should let a few people see you, Rogue. Everyone's been awfully worried. Thought I'd have to put _elf_ in a headlock." Logan stroked his chin at the memory. "We got plenty of time to talk business and shop." Every time there was a near death crisis, Logan's training regimen always got more difficult.

"I have never heard Kitty be so quiet for so long, Rogue. You should visit with her and Kurt and dissuade their fears." Charles gave the girl a weary smile. She still underestimated how cared about, she was. Jean nodded vigorously.

_"Scott's_, too. The tile outside is worn from his pacing." Rogue half smiled. It wasn't like her many lived consciousnesses were going anywhere, but she couldn't shake the anxious feeling. She wasn't doing enough. She wasn't doing it fast enough.

"Ah-"

A crash prompts Logan to jump to his feet, claws extended. The culprit is none other than a mutant with a bo staff and a brown trench coat. Utterly embarrassed and convinced the future was doomed left in their hands, Rogue covered her face. Jean mistakes the movement of her shoulders for crying, but the tired girl is actually laughing. Gambit had snuck his way into the medbay, and Logan was going to skin him for it.

"You thieving, son-of-a-"

_"Logan..."_ Jean admonished, her eyes shut. "He was _only_ worried,"

"What part of not havin' visitors did_ swamp rat_ not understand!" Logan bleated, the cajun ignoring him completely.

"No visitors, dang convention in here!" He says, standing and dusting himself off. Rogue peered at him through her fingers, hating herself for being a little glad to see him. "_Chére,"_ His cheeks burn red when he realizes Charles is staring right at him. "Never had dat conversation, _chére._ Minnou told Remy y'was back, had to see." Logan snorted loudly.

"You can have a conversation when you wanna stick around,_ full time_." He jabbed a claw towards him. The girl had nearly died, she didn't need anymore "will they, won't they" from him. Charles looked at Jean and smiled.

"I see normalcy may return quicker than we thought." The telepath says with obvious relief, watching the men bicker. "I will return to check on you soon, Rogue. I will spread the good news and have a much better meeting with my friend. Moira is here." Rogue's emotions hit Jean upside the head. The change in the air pressure of the room silenced both Logan and Remy. "I'm hoping she will be able to fill in what's happene-"

_"No,_ professor... She..." A shooting pain in her temple makes Rogue shriek, dropping Jean and Hank to her side. The climbing pressure in her mind is becoming unbearable, and she feels like she's pass out. _'Nnnngh, god. She did this. '_

_"What is reality, anyway?" _

_-x-_

_"I would say, reality is what we make it."_

_'What life was that?' Rogue thinks, all of her memories begin melting together._

"Stripe?" Logan places a hand on her back and yanks away. She was burning hot to the touch. "What's the matter?"

_'Her mind, she's in pure terror, professor. Moira triggered it.'_

_'I felt, Jean.'_ The windows were rattling. "Rogue, tell me what's got you frightened. We are here!" Jean said nothing, but she could feel it. Charles didn't want to believe that she wasn't benevolent. Maybe, couldn't.

"She's a _mutant,_ professor." The girl hissed, like she was speaking about Apocalypse. When her breath shuddered, Remy knelt down at her side._ "She-"_ Another memory interrupted her words.

"Rogue, stop pushing yourself." Hank demanded in concern, eyeing her vitals in growing alarm.

_I am here. I have always been here._

Slips of another life kept cutting into her current one. Things that made sense to Rogue, but wouldn't if she tried to verbalize it. Right now, if she spoke, she was afraid her friends were throw her in the looney bin. But, Moira couldn't be trusted. She armed Apocalypse with enough information to end existence, itself. She betrayed the professor and sacrificed him. She sacrificed Rogue.

She would compel the professor to commit atrocities, she was sure of it. Well, over her dead body. The fires of six or seven lives coursed through her. When her skin began to flicker to iron, Jean gasped. Then, a pink butterfly enveloped her forehead. "Oh my stars and garters..." Hank breathes, watching as the room filled with a pink light. When medical instruments began to levitate, Charles screamed for her.

_"Rogue, it's alright!_ Fight it!" They watched in confusion as tears streamed down her face.

"She can't be trusted professor. She'll betray us." Charles frowned. This was strangely specific to be a delusion. But, what could she mean? She was as benevolent as Jean was.

"Calm down, Rogue. It's okay." Remy called through the insanity. When Jean bristled, Logan shot his claws. Somehow, she'd cut through the insanity of the infirmary. Behind them all, in what looked like an expensive suit set, stood Moira.

"Perhaps we have some things to talk about,_ Charles."_ His blood runs cold when he hears her._ 'She's a mutant'_ ringing through his had. His greatest love and his biggest blind spot had deceived him, in some way. And, she might've caused harm to Rogue. Something he couldn't forgive. Jean's arched an eyebrow, examining her, quickly.

"How did you get down here?" The red head asks, but the woman stares through her. Something isn't right, with her.

"Ah've waited _so long_ for this moment." When Rogue doesn't relax, Logan studies the Scottish woman.

"Did you do something to her? _Moira?"_ The Canadian watched her, unflinchingly.

_"Oh child. Come home." She lifted her own hand and touched her fingers to Rogue's face._

_"Yeah_ Moira, let's talk about Muir island." Rogue's drawl is thick in a rage, pointing a shaking finger. "How the cure was _fake?_ How you played on his sympathy towards mah condition, lied to lure me out there! So, you could trap me in _your hell!_ Without MAH consent! What about mah life, Moira? It didn't matter?" Everyone was gaping at Rogue as she screamed, red faced at Moira like they'd known each other all their lives.

A door kicked open and the thunder of footsteps came down the hall. "Professor!" Scott screamed down the hallway. Kurt and Kitty appear outside Rogue's room, clinging to each other.

"Ve heard raised voices!" Kurt called, hoping he wasn't scolded for barging in. Rogue was awake, shrouded in a giant, black shirt that looked like Logan's. And, it looked like steam would shoot from her ears. The strange visitor, there to see Charles, doesn't seem worried. In fact, she's smiling with what looks like relief. _'Vhats going on?'_ He looked around the tense room. "Rogue?" Kitty quirked an eyebrow.

"Is everything alright?" Scott wedged his way into the room, locking eyes with Jean. He can tell it isn't, just from her face.

_"No,"_ Rogue seethed. The objects had settled in the room, but her anger had not subsided. "It's not. Maybe, it seemed like a coma to_ y'all._ But, this fruitcake touched me. She touched, and Ah lived _seven damn lives_. Killin', dyin', and for what!" She screamed, Kitty edging near her slowly. "Over and over, Ah died! No matter what Ah did, how Ah lived... Over, and over..._ And ove_r..." Kitty braces her when she begins to shake and falls out of the bed.

Kitty nearly phases through the floor when Kurt starts screaming. When the convulsions start, Logan pins her as Hank crashes to her side. In the pandemonium, Charles turned to a silent Moira. Feeling a part of himself die, he asks. "Did you_ do something t_o her, Moira. Don't lie to me."

"What Ah _had to_, Charles." She turns to the girl, shaking in Logan and Hank's arms. "It happens with every life. It'll pass. Her mind isn't ready yet. Enter mine and understand." Tears glittering in his eyes, he obeyed. He takes in just a flash, enough to know how to proceed. Moira _was_ a mutant. She did reincarnate at death. She had transferred her ability to Rogue as a contingency plan, and the effects had been unpredictable.

He groaned, and Scott and Jean are at his side.

"Professor?" Jean places a hand on his back, concerned for the strain he's been under.

"Well?" Scott demands, his brow worked in knots. A tear slipped out one of the telepath's eyes.

_"Oh my god."_ He looked up at Rogue's still form.

"She'll be fine in a few hours. Ah was thinkin' we could talk in the meantime. There's so much more to tell. To explain." Charles was thirsting for the knowledge, but her deceit was leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. His eyes have settled on what seems to be futuristic version of a flash drive. Something that may be worth derailing lives.

"Why didn't you _ask,_ Moira? She would've done it." His voice is cross, no matter how curious he is. Logan glowered from the ground as Hank carefully lifted Rogue.

"Because, mutant kind cain't ask, anymore. Charles, Ah know ya can understand that." He only pressed his mouth in a grim line. She wanted to squirm under the many, disapproving eyes. But, she stood firm. "Ah know you may_ never_ trust me again. Hell, Rogue will hate me. But, Ah know that this is worth it. That's what Ah've discovered." The bald man only sighed.

"I need this area cleared." He says through clenched teeth.

"Professor, _you can'_-" Scott begins, tearing from Jean's side.

"Rogue needs her rest. And, I need this information so that I may share it and use it in a way to protect all of us. This is a heavy revelation." His disappointed stare lands on the once love of his life. "No matter _what_ unethical methods Moira used, we can use this in a way to protect our race." Jean sighed, tugging on Scott as he seethed.

"But, professor!" Kitty baulks, a misty-eyed Kurt at her side.

"The professor's right, we'll deal with the rest later." The ginger haired psychic tried to steer Scott towards the door.

"I don't like this, Charles." Logan growls, refusing to be forgotten. Remy shuffled cards sullenly, not pleased to hear Rogue's gotten the short end of the stick somehow, again.

"Remy don't like it, n'either." Moira bowed her head.

"Ah understand the risks of everything Ah do. When it's all said and done," A determined look took over her eye. She watched as the mutants reluctantly filed out. "Ah hope you all think Ah was right."

* * *

_I am here. I have always been here._

_-x-_

_**"I'm not afraid of what Ah've done, but Ah do some day fear what it will cost."** _

_\- Moira MacTaggert, life 10 (current)_


	8. Chapter 8

-x-

**"They will think we are doing one thing, but the truth is we are doing something altogether different."****  
****_-_**_ Charles Xavier_

_-x-_

* * *

Rogue opened her eyes to her blue sibling leaned over her, his brow furrowed in concern. When she frowned as well, even without the normal malice usually behind it, he gasped. Half dead, reincarnated, it didn't matter. She still required space. When she snarled weakly, he smiled in relief. Maybe, she was finally getting better. "Oh, heavens. _She's..."_ Kitty rose to her feet and Jean clasped her hands together. "She's_ avake._ Rogue?"

_"Quieter,_" She rasped, pushing herself up against the pillow. She watched with mild disgust as Jean reached for the bed remote and placed it at an incline. She tried to squirm closer to the wall, but there was no getting away from her teammates. They had the 'I'm not letting you out of my sight', look. Her head was throbbing so badly she didn't care if this life was real. If she was in a coma, or dead. She scrubbed at her face with gloved hands. "Ugh,_ no offense,_ but why are y'all all in my room? Little crowded..."

Her sarcasm didn't warrant smiles like she was hoping. Jean looked like someone kicked her family dog, draped in Logan's X-Jacket and he face perturbed. And, she couldn't tell if Kitty was about to start laughing or crying. Maybe, screaming by the way she was wrinkling her face. Her shirt is golden yellow and she's wearing those silly, baggy 'boyfriend' jeans that were so fashionable now. They made her look even more delicate.

And, Kurt's wearing one of the skateboard shirts Evan left behind for him. She didn't know why, but she was really missing the street smart city kid who used to be their teammate. Her brother's staring at her in wonder, like she wasn't too stubborn to die. When she looked around she didn't see Logan, anchored at her side. Or, hear Scott's raised voice outside the door. She'd gotten use to her infirmary stays, and those things came with the room. She tucked her bangs behind her ear as Kurt examined her. "Where _is_ Logan?"

Jean rubbed a temple. "Him, Scott, and Remy are are probably trying to get past Ororo and Hank to chew out the professor..." She theorized, Kitty moving past her.

"Rogue, you almost _died._" She huffs, angry tears glittering behind blue eyes. Rogue almost wants to say she'd be so lucky, but her friend's worried stare stops her. The petite mutant misses getting detentions together, and forcing her friend to got to the mall. Watching movies that gave her nightmares, now things were serious."You... You accused the professor's friend of a lot of stuff Rogue, serious stuff. You..." She can't help but feel hurt that her best friend disappeared on a mission without word and almost returned in a body bag. She flicks at her eye in frustration. Kurt's eyes softened as he settled beside his sister.

"Hank says... Your heart stopped. Briefly, of course." He made a more serious face than the girl can remember seeing. "Ve are given permission to freak out, now. _Please,_ let us." Rogue tried to find a comfortable position to sit in. She needed them to be calm, no more freaking out. This business was the least of their worries, believe it or not.

She just snorted, trying to shake the weird atmosphere. "Feel fine, now. Fine_ enough._ My everythin' hurts." She murmurs, her mind filled with hazy thoughts. Dying over and over had given her an aversion to being fussed over. If she was alive and breathing, it was fine. She grabbed Kurt's blue wrist. "It's _okay_, now." Her accent is thick and clumsy, like her tongue in her mouth. It still didn't feel real. What if her existence forever was waking up out of an eternal nightmare? When she begins to shake, Jean placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah, and we want to make sure it stays that way." Kitty asserts, her voice loud for one so small. "No one's letting you off on your own, again. Logan's promised that. And, I think he's on to something..." She stuck her tongue out at her former roommate, slowly recalling the freakout that probably led her to passing out._ 'Moira...'_ She had a lot to say, and that in her lives Moira would defect to Apocalypse.

"Which one of y'all is carryin' me up there?" Rogue grumbled, her head still sloshing strange memories. "We need to talk."

_"Slow down_, sis." Kurt urged as she tried to peel away the sheets. He was growing concerned.

"Rogue... Some of the things you said..." Jean lowered shakily to a seat, her mouth tugging downward. "Try to make us understand. What _happened_ on Muir Island?" Rogue burned under their stares, hearing raised voices overhead. "I've never... Felt or sensed anything like it, Rogue." Jean wrapped toned arms around herself. She should be dead, at least in a coma. The pressure in her mind should be enough to kill her.

Rogue looked through a halo of white at her brother.

"What happened _here_?" Kurt lowered his gaze.

* * *

_She was laying in a pool of her own blood. 'I never should've left her alone,' He thinks rabidly as he takes her into his arms. 'I should've said fuck you, Xavier. Taken her somewhere else. Sent him to talk to Moira.' An explosion rocks the lab and he's flying through the building as the ceiling collapsed inwards. He wrapped his jacket around her and dashed into the night, the wind stinging his eyes as he ran._

_Scott was pacing in his uniform, forbidden by Logan to enter the burning building after he forbid the rest of the frantic team to follow them. His boots had worn into the grass as he strains through pink and red lenses to see his teammate in the instructor's arms. His mouth drops when he watched the man drop to the grass and slice the glove off his hand._

_Scott tries to steel his face as he stands on the cliffs of Scotland. He feels like a high school student, someone completely unqualified to deal with the potential lost of a teammate. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth. "W-Wolverine." He stepped closer. "How is s-"_

_"Not now, Scott." First name. He deflated when Logan laid a flat palm onto the pale girl's face. And, waited. Scott has to remind himself to breath when veins show through her skin, over a minute later. She was alive, but she wasn't out of the woods yet. He could tell from the snarl pulled tight on Logan's face and the way his body language did not permit Scott any closer._

_He pulled back one eyelid and growled ferociously at whatever he saw. She was mobbed with sweat and burning up. Kitty, Kurt, Jean, Ororo, Bobby and Piotr hit the ground running to investigate when they see Logan crouch on the ground. Just a look halts most of then, Kitty covering her face as the Russian stands beside her._

_"We wait, Katya. Let Wolverine work." He says, quietly. He has seen enough death in Russia to know this is bad. _

_"Jean." He grunts and she hovers over, shivering. She can't open her mouth and form the words, but she doesn't sense their teammate. Not in her mind. Not on the astral plane, there's a distinct lack of Rogue's mutant signature. And, her's was distinct. One that refused to be ignored. She doesn't know how to say it, but Logan sees it in her eyes. "I need you to communicate with Charles and Henry. I need you to keep her from getting worse."_

_"Yes." She whimpers, Scott forcing the nerve to stoop by her side._

_'P-Professor...'_

_'Please, Jean. Tell me everything's okay. How's-'_

_'Hank needs to prep the infirmary. There was a... There was problem on Rogue's mission.'_

_'How bad, Jean?' She spared a look at the girl, laying still in front of Logan. She blocked him from looking in via their link, it would only make it worse for him._

_'I don't know. But, Logan's worried, really worried. We're going to get Ororo to storm us home.' Kurt appeared beside Logan, his hands on his head._

_"I-I'll port us to the jet!" He offered, his eyes lingering on Rogue's face. But, the clawed man blocked him with a broad arm._

_"Don't think the teleport is a good idea." Is all Logan says, gathering her in his arms. It was eerily reminiscent to the time her powers spun out of control. "She's not stable enough." Kurt tried to quiet his breathing, but he mostly failed._

_"Okay. B-But, she'll be okay. Right?" He forced the Canadian mutant's stare. "Right?"_

_"Let's talk, Kurt." He mumbled, watching her face. His inhuman senses had clued him in that the girl could be dying, right now. Jean hasn't said a word. All he knows is they need to hurry home._

Rogue blinked back tears. She would've lost her shit over much less. She wouldn't even let Kurt or Kitty out out of her sight, definitely not now. Not ever. Rogue had learned a lot about surviving from her time with Mystique. The woman put her through things that had her ready to deal with sentinels and Apocalypse. Before she thought better of it, she pulled the slender mutant to her in a careful embrace. Kurt shut his eyes, tight.

If she goes into the good night, she leaves Kurt in the world with Mystique and a mutant hating bigot as his family. And, she wouldn't do that. "Ah'm_ sorry."_ She sighed. "Wouldn't leave ya here..." She murmurs, pushing him away before he began to think she liked hugs. Now, she's pissed for what Moira's put her friends through. She'd been living through hell and the school had been in a state of mourning. "Pick your faces up, _Ah'm fine_. Besides, we need to deal with Moira... She..."

Another searing pain crashed through her mind and she cried out. "Whoa, easy. You get a pain every time you mention her." Kitty tucked brown hair behind her ear as she stooped near her pale friend.

"So... Vhile you were unconscious... You," Kurt looked at her with sympathetic eyes. "You lived _full lives?_ From birth? Over and over? Rogue, I..." This changed everything the boy thought he knew about religion. Life. Anything. Whose to say if something happens to Rogue she won't keep living? In a loop, no matter _what_ they did. The thought terrified him. Once again, his only sibling was thrust into a situation he felt powerless to save her from. "I vill pray for Moira, and _her soul_ for putting you through this."

Rogue cast a glance at the infirmary sheets. "Don't need no one to help me with Moira." Even in her pitiful state, she could handle the woman on her own. The girl's blood runs hot when she remembers her smug face. Her eyes glaze over as the memories pervade her mind. "This is bigger than my sufferin', Kurt. Even me nearly _dyin'."_ Kitty frowns when Rogue stands, a massive shirt hanging over her X-Suit. "It's everything. All of us. The world. Can't wait, no more. We need to talk to the professor." Her former roommate reluctantly offered a shoulder for her to lean on.

"Well, you'll only go up there yourself..." She comments, eyeing Rogue secretly. Kurt jumped to his feet, his tail swishing. They could hear stomps upstairs. Jean stood seriously beside them.

"The professor's up there with her. He cares for Moira, a lot. Maybe, he should hear what you need to say." The telepath admits worriedly, weary of all the feelings she was absorbing. Kurt came around the other side to support Rogue. "Sooner rather than later, before..." Her grey eyes smoldered beneath silver hair. Even as weak as she was, she would do what she had to to protect Charles.

_"Before_ she works him over."

* * *

****CLASSIFIED XAVIER FILES****

_Reincarnated lives_

_With the aid of Cerebro, Charles was able to sift through evidence of Moira MacTaggert's lives. She appeared to live 10, full lives with the knowledge of each one. Her mutations seems to allow her one-of-a-kind ability to recall each one, and the ability to affect the main timeline with her activism regardless of what has always transpired. _

_• Life 1: Moira lives normally, falls in love, bares children, lives a normal, fulfilling human life_

_• Life 2: Moira is reincarnated with full memory of her first life, clueing her in that she was at least not "normal". She sees Charles on television, dies in a plane crash rushing to meet him. The cycle starts again._

_• Life 3:__ In this life, Moira founds the Muir Science Research institute, isolates the X-Gene, and creates a mutant cure to help her affliction and others *it appears some of her 'lives' cross and overflows with Rogue's multiple lives* She died in a laboratory fire, set by Destiny and Mystique. This life urges her to work to change the mutant condition*_

_• Life 4: Her fourth life, she sees Charles for what he is underneath his own arrogance and messiah complex: a man who wanted a place for his people. A people she was a part of. She fell in love with Charles and his dream, and she died at his side when the machines came for them. The school. Their dream. *This shows Moira that Destiny and Mystique told her the truth. _

_•Life 5: In this life, Moira found Charles as a child. Decades before she was ever supposed. She opened her mind and showed him her lives so far, and they changed Charles' life. His love gave him a new dream. With her memories and his knowledge, he built an impenetrable city. He called his children home to live as one race and humans another. And, the A.I machines still came for them._

_•Life 6: Charles is unable to view this life_

_•Life 7: Radicalized by her failure, Moira hunts all those responsible for mutant hunting tech. Entire family lines for a decade. *This life shows Moira the true danger and nature of Artificial Intelligence. Once it reaches a certain threshold, the machines come and the timeline is lost. Exterminating creators did not stop their creation. One of Rogue's lives mimicked this experience*_

_•Life 8: Moira seeks Magneto, fearing that Charles' benevolence was the cancer of their race. Her words only fueled Erik's decades long feelings of evolutionary dominance being required for mutant-kind's survival. *In Rogue's life, her intimate knowledge of his memories & Charles' memories lead him to a slightly more passive stance. He demanded space and life for mutants, but not through waging war.* In both lives, mutants stand with humans to protect them._

_•Life 9: This life crossed over with Rogue's final* Feeling she was running out of time and out of options, she goes to Apocalypse with all of her memories and knowledge, praying he would have some solution she hadn't seen. Rogue could not stomach the thought of leaving the X-Men behind, but Moira saw Charles and Erik slaughtered so they could go to work. This life would be a springboard for the real attempt. An attempt for mutants to thrive, not just exist._

_Rogue's "death" returned her to her first, real life. Moira's death and rebirth **restarts** the timeline, while Rogue seems to go through real, valid simulated lives that left her with organic memories._

* * *

Charles opened his eyes and he was staring back at defiant, brown eyes. "_Oh, my god." _


	9. Chapter 9

_-x-_

_See the magician, the girl with her foot in two worlds..._

* * *

_"Unfortunately, for one of mine to flourish, many of yours must perish. Including you. So, as you fade away into nothingness, do try to find it in your heart to forgive me."  
** -Nimrod**  
_

_-x-_

* * *

_An undetermined amount of time in the future..._

* * *

She is mutant, but part machine. Everything that has survived the mutant/machine war is, now. She's more organic than most, and she's been captured and kept in the kingdom of the robotic overlords. Mutated, all seeing sentinels and the humans that serve them. And, then him. The omnipotent, mutated machine that rules them all. More god than anything after so much time, Nimrod.

It is his mission to eradicate all that remains of the X-Gene. Of their failed mutant engineering program. The little mutant stares at machinery that's evolved to mimic a spine.

_"You..."_ The mutant's name was Cylobel in another life, a life that's a bout to end. "You think threatening me will make me tell you what you want? I'm not afraid to die for what I believe in!" The data trapped by the metal plate in her head sizzles. He will learn of their entire plan through her, and there was nothing she can do about it.

A red skinned woman, a chimera like Cylobel that actually betrayed her race (that's a story for another day, a whole class of mutants bred for the purpose of defecting on their own kind) and stands behind Nimrod, mutant eradicator. "It's_ good_ that you're willing to die for a cause." The humans look on, wondering if this mess was all worth it. If their ancestors would do anything differently as they stand on the floating space station. "Though, causes have long seemed fatal for you people..."

They all watch (Nimrod with girlish glee) as the chimera is dropped into the femto information extraction liquid, burning her organic parts in acid. The humans look away, but the traitor watches. "And, while _this is_ a kind of death, it's not one you can escape from." They watched her struggling form go still.

So far, Moira's ninth life extended far past a natural life. Time was unrecognizable and jarring to Charles, and still he did not understand what he was seeing.

_'Why show me, Moira? I do not want to see how you've suffered...'_

_'Let me show you why, Charles...'_

* * *

**SENTINEL MUTANT BREEDING CAMPS**

SalCen Khennil

-x-

**HOUNDS:** Mutants bred in captivity to hunt other mutants. Modified HOUNDS were created with unreadable black brains. While some were effective at their intended target and lethal, many defected to their own race and became mutant's most effective weapons during the Mutant Machine conflict

* * *

_"Can we ever really be done with the past? After all, that's what a legacy is..." _

* * *

_'What did you give to Apocalypse, Moira?_' The telepath is unnerved by seeing his own death, then Moira and Apocalypse leaving via portal.

_'Forever. Enough. Time. In your world, in the worlds that lived on... His actions seemed cruel, but they were clandestine. Apocalypse waged the war that gave us the time to get knowledge. Knowledge of how to do this, right.'_

He doesn't know if this is same Wolverine or a cloned Wolverine. Apocalypse's horseman have different connotations when they're fighting for the validity of mutant kind. But, he stands there in greying whiskers. Standing in a vintage yellow and brown uniform. Apocalypse, what looks like a bred Magneto, Wolverine, and the genetic bastards stand among the remnants of an asteroid.

One is a red skinned teleporter, obviously containing some of the long gone Nightcrawler's DNA. He is passive to a fault, even with a sword in shaking hands.

The other is an iron skinned woman, with blue hair down her back. She is the warrior of the two, wondering how she faces the end times with a chimera who still believes in god.

"They_ say_ they got what we were looking for..." The burly Wolverine snarls. "But Percival and Cylobel are dead. And without Percy's black out abilities, I don't see how we make it back into the last, human city." He growled, still as ornery as ever. Magneto only groans beside him, but Apocalypse has his eyes trained on the chimera.

"Forgive him, war has a way of limiting perspective." Apocalypse begins, his voice calm. "It's the effects of that seed. Did you_ really_ recover the data?" He recovers the small stick from the teleporter's hands. "Reduced down to their essence, the machines are composed of pure information. It's such a precarious thing in the hands of the living... _Too much_, and the weak are paralyzed by choice. Too little and the foolish jump boldly into the unknown. But just enough..." Ancient eyes raise and catch them all. The ones who remain. "A little fire from the gods, and it is the great sword of victory and worth everything to have. Pay attention, children."

The chimera mutants feel embarrassed, suddenly, like Apocalypse is their stern grandfather._ "For this,_ I would've sacrificed you all. It means that much."

Charles studies what Apocalypse holds in this memory, the very item Moira is clutching, now.

Lightyears away, Nimrod realizes the sneaky mission was successful.

_'I could not find them because their existence was encrypted, invisible to machine eyes.'_

They now knew what exact file they needed to locate and destroy to ensure a new, successful timeline. Successful for mutants. But, without the encryption of Percival, no way to finish the rest of their plan. "There won't be anyone _left_ to use the data. We can't get in and out of the city again, it's a suicide mission." Logan complained to whoever was listening at this point.

"This life, hundreds of years spent fighting the inevitable. Unavoidable. I now know we will never defeat the machines, the robots. The future. This is how we will do it. Stop a certain threshold of technology from being built, create our own world. Not just ask for our own country. We will go and take what we need. And then, we will return. All of us."

Cardinal looked into Rasputin's eyes as Apocalypse spoke. "This is a promise whose guarantee is assured. Is is assured because_ I will lead you."_

Charles can't believe what he's seeing. Apocalypse, battling in the future for the fate of mutant kind._ 'I... I can't believe...'_ He watched as they tore into the ascended, Man/Machine city. The atom's last stand against oblivion._ 'Moira has these memories... Memories that she is not in..._' But, he was certain this was no elaborate fantasy. This was a lived life. This was the future._ Their_ future, if he did not act.

More death, more pain. A chimera bred from Kurt Wagner's peaceful, everlasting legacy. Genes so docile he can barely face the final war. One who ate a black Apocalypse seed to carry out his goal. One that took his life.

Cardinal stares down at the man machines, humans forcefully injected with living, techno-organic molecules that mutated them until death. Humans would align with anything to overcome mutants. That was the sad truth.

_"Why..."_ The man demands. "Why are you doing this!"

"I am a pacifist who's been pushed to the brink. But even for those like_ me_, there comes a time where a point where a point must be made. Today I ate a terminal Apocalypse seed to overcome my predisposition to nonviolence, but I'd choose my end over yours,_ any day_. You betray your own, for what? Machines who find contempt at your very existence?" Yellow eyes pierce what remains of the human's legacy.

The HOUND looked into his eyes, happy for the life they've had. He smiles. "I do it for the Great Machines, who are our better. I do it for my God._ See God,_ mutant. She is here." Cardinal turns to see the sentinels the size of towers, a chimera traitor leading them all. This was the end. The final mission. He slashed his sword quick, staring the machines down.

Rasputin stood beside the illusive mutant, Xorn. She had skin of iron that could withstand anything, but whatever was hidden by his mask would take her from this mortal coil. Probably existence. Whatever it is blackholes do.

Wolverine, Magneto, Apocalypse, and the mutant made of the land are trying to get into the living data of all Mothermold created sentinels. Information about when, exactly, the machine Nimrod came online. When Moira dies again, she will have all the information needed to stop that from happening. To keep artificial intelligence from reaching a doomsday threshold.

This would mean the complete annihilation of this timeline, all they've done, all the mutants bred out of suffering in it. Logan shut his eyes grimly. They had to die so mutants could _really_ live, so they'd never exist, again. And, no sooner did they extract the precious data before Nimrod realizes what the point of all the shenanigans really were.

-x-

The red-skinned HOUND smiles at the last remainders of the resistance. Her skin is iron and her foot is between two worlds. The living, and the dead. Her metal hand shakes over her friend's mask, but he isn't afraid. This is what he was made for. The teleporter is dead. Soon, their friends and 'leader' would be dead. And, all would be right in their heaven.

"I've just received word... Nimrod was correct. Your allies have been located and are being dealt with. This distraction will not serve any greater purpose than being an _end to you and an inconvenience to me."_ Her face is lit harshly by the fires of the burning church. "How sad..."

"I'll give you an inconvenience. If I remove this mask here, then this is _all_ gone. Ever wondered what's at the inside of a blackhole?" Rasputin glares at Nimrod's personal lapdog, bitterly. Cylobel was gone. Cardinal was gone. But, here she was. The last stand. Apocalypse only hope. It was kind of poetic she was bred to betray race someday. How wrong, they were.

"A singularity? I don't think you will. You people are so attached to _holding on._.. Even when you have_ nothing_ to hold on, to." She waved a hand dismissively, sentinels behind her. "Besides, do any of you people know what lies at the heart of a blackhole? I'll give you a hint... It's where we're headed. It's where we're _all headed._" She can't contain her glee at crushing the last of the remaining mutants.

"Please, come closer..." Xorn rasps, dark matter shining behind his mask. "This is the ending I have_ always_ wanted." Rasputin chuckles and so does Xorn as they shared one last look. It was a pretty good end, one they were fine with being unwritten and forgotten.

"You know what, you're right._ I don't know what's in the middle of a blackhole. Let's find out."_

"No."

Xavier gasps as the blackhole erodes the memory as he witnesses._ 'My god...'_

* * *

Logan looked bitterly at the portal and back to Apocalypse. Magneto had long since fallen, and they both weren't making it through.

"Go," Apocalypse orders as Nimrod continually replicates itself. "Take it. You know what to do with it." He would stay and fight, but his arm is hanging by a thread as it is. And, someone has to make it back. Logan takes the crystal grudgingly, tired of being the One Who Survives. He hightails it, hearing Apocalypse by swarmed by regenerative sentinels.

He left him behind, to die. Or, come however close an immortal can. He has another job, and Moira is waiting for him.

For years, she's slept for this moment.

"Wake up, Moira." Logan says in a gravelly voice. "I have it." She wakes up slowly, studying Logan's skin as his gashes and burns heal. "Apocalypse knew we'd be working on a clock. He's compressed all the info you need to know into this," He holds the glowing crystal forward. "So we could force feed you the information. Hold still..." He places the crystal at her chest and gasps as the data overwhelms her.

She winces as as miles of information flooded her mind. Everything. All of it. At once. Her eyes tear as she studied Wolverine, fully healed. "Got it?" He asked gently, hearing explosions behind them. Even still, Nimrod was coming.

"Yes. All of it." Her expression hardened, and he grinned. "We're ready, now." Logan spares a thought to people he hasn't seen for hundreds of years. Ones he hopes to see, again. Reborn. "Now what, Logan?" He turned away from her.

"If we did this right... The old man said to send you on your way." The look in his eye is tired. Tired of the bloodshed, blood on his claws. Of losing his friends, friends he knows better than to make. "There's nothin' here to save." Her gaze lowered. She was most used to this part.

"I..." Logan looks away sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Moira." She smiles. She'd enjoy this death, knowing what came after.

"It's okay. I have everything I need. This..." Her eyes hardened, like glass. "This is what _you_ have to do." Obliging one last time, he forced his claws through her slender waist, crying out when they pierced through. Then, everything faded to black...

* * *

_"And, should forever end, let me die in battle, surrounded by my fallen enemies and with blood on my sword."_

_ ** -Apocalypse**_

* * *

Charles reared back as Moira's life ended in the memories, and seemed to continued into this life. The life he already knew her in. He'd met, even loved the woman. They'd met many times, but she never told him she was a mutant. Perhaps, one of the most important of all. He can see from the intricate and disturbing things she's gone through that this took impeccable planning, but still. How had she not told?

Panting, the telepath studied brown fabric and a face he knew so well_. "Moira..."_ Is all he can muster. He knows the others camped outside his office might not agree, but this information might've been worth upsetting Rogue's life. All of theirs, but he wished it could've been him. "Why did you transfer your mutation to Rogue. Why didn't_ tell us._.."

The girl and the school were expecting an answer, and he deserved one. "You see that Ah couldn't, Charles..." Her expression became pained. "Ah _know_ how you love each of your children, in special ways... Ah couldn't be sure, even if it'd save the future, that you would put her at risk. Her team wouldn't put her at risk, but..."

"Apocalypse." Charles finished. "He... He wanted more proof."

"Needed more evidence, all of it to carefully craft the plan that's brought me here. Today." He met troubled eyes, and felt solace in the fact that the choice had been hard for her. She was the warm, challenging, and loving woman he'd fallen for. His fingers rested against his face as he thought. His mind was ringing, raw from all the things he'd witnessed in rapid succession. "But, there's _more_ you kin see from Rogue. Ah believe she can show you the future. How... Things are supposed to be."

He studied brown eyes. He'd spent his whole life chasing a dream, but this knowledge changed everything. Could he be trusted to handle the future? The_ real_ future. The one Moira risked everything for.

"I understand. Moira. Even before... When I said I did..." She watched the man's hands shake, something she can honestly say she's never seen before. "But, I saw it as you did. I _understand_ now, what it is we must do..." His eyes drifted to the strange device in her hands._ 'Whatever is on the file.'_ She slowly closed the distance between them, optimistic that he might forgive her transgressions, one day.

"Everything Ah did, Charles. Ah did for_ this_ moment. For us to have a future..." He sighed as he hand trailed down his chest. "Ah-" A knock at the door and a chorus of yelling interrupted her.

"It's alright." They locked eyes once again. "I think it's time I speak with Rogue."


	10. Chapter 10

_"In the future to come, I fear our needs will far outlast our desires. We have many hard choices ahead of us."_

**-Charles Xavier**

-x-

* * *

Scott was pacing back and forth on the maroon carpet outside of Charles' door. The sounds of Gambit shuffling his cards could almost drive him wild, but not as wild as the cigarette smoke billowing from Logan's mouth. Normally, this group of men together would've started an argument. Right now, they were united against one thing: protecting Rogue and the school from whatever was in the psychic's office.

Moira could not be trusted. The more they thought, the more they feared the girl's coma ramblings were true. That was was sinister. Dangerous. And, Charles would be a fool to trust her. The man's generous ways and big heart were known, and it worries them all for different reasons.

All Logan knows is the girl has almost died, more times than he'd like to count, and it has to do with Moira. And her touch. That alone... Remy looks up when his claws punctured a crinkled, cigarette box. A growl rumbles in his throat.

"McCoy say petite fine," The southern man says, but the paleness of his skin and the worried look in his eye showed that he shared the man's anxiety. He doesn't look fondly on the past few hours, either. They didn't really care what information Moira's insanity had produced, X-Men didn't trade lives. They didn't throw each other up the river or into comas.

"You mean,_ before_ we found Rogue dying or_ after _she became so enraged by Moira her heart stopped." Scott's voice is shaking as he stares impatiently at Charles' door. He didn't know Moira personally, but he took Rogue's words to heart. Remy's stare drifts down to a joker card in his hands.

"Chuck loves the woman..." Is all Logan says, his world view shifted after the harrowing couple of days he's had. "If... Her intentions aren't right, if someone has gotten to her..." He leaves the rest unfinished. Even one as driven as Charles won't cut down the love of his life for his dream. Few men could. "Regardless. I'll do what he can't." Regardless, they all know they are powerless to stop the man from believing her if he's inclined to.

That's why they this was dangerous. To make it worse, it feels like an eternity she's been in there. They have no idea what she's telling him. The woman who lured their teammate thousands of miles away under the pretenses of lies. One who couldn't wait to get their hands on her, like Mystique or Apocalypse. To Scott, she was no different. They had to make Charles understand that.

Remy quirked an eyebrow when the Canadian mutant dropped his cigarettes and bolted for the stairs, cursing. "Marie," He only referred to her with that name when he was angry. Scott followed after, leaving a bewildered Gambit to pick up the cigarettes as they found Rogue being led up the stairs by Kurt and Kitty, the red headed psychic behind them with a sheepish grin.

"Wait a minute," She tried, but Logan's face was beet red.

"Kitty? Kurt? Red? Encouragin' her reckless begavior?"

"We came to make sure she didn't hurt herself." Kitty insisted, one of her hands held up.

"Ja, she was going to come vhether ve helped her, or not." Her brother added, an annoyed stare anchored on Rogue. She was staring past the chaos at the professor's door. She was exhausted, but she needed to do this with things clear in her mind. Before he completely subscribed to Moira's truth. "You know her,"

"You shouldn't be up and about..." Scott begins, wagging a finger that nobody's paying attention to. _'Jean, what are you thinking! She looks awfu-'_

'_This can't wait, Scott. Or I would've kept her in bed, myself_.' Remy slipped around both men and delicately took Rogue's hands into his own. He led her slowly up the stairs, Logan growling the whole way until he speaks.

"Y'really do look like y'should be in bed, _chére._" His solemn concern touches her heart, but nothing is more important to getting to Charles. "Been a rough coupl' days, non?" He studies her with a long, hard look. She looks beautiful considering the days she's had, but not well.

"Ah'm okay, Remy. Really..." She doesn't sound like it, but he knows better than to count her out. And, if the telepath thinks she should be up there, maybe she should. He'd never seen such wild or frightening things as he had since he came to that school. He'd never been as scared, either. Even when his life was in danger down south. He hates the look in her eyes. Distant, tangled in lives already lived or that never happened. As if enough didn't fill her mind, his blood runs hot thinking about what the mutant did to her. "It can't wait any longer. Ah need to see the professor, and if he's in there talking to her..." Her eyes narrowed. "He already knows we need to speak."

They're all familiar with the look in her eye, it was one that would not compromise. Blessings or not, she was going in that office.

"Ve'll come, vith you." Kurt says, the look in his eye nervous.

"Yeah... I don't want that Scottish lady anywhere near you." Kitty added, twiddling her fingers. Scott stepped up, next.

"You said it yourself, she can't be trusted." Rogue barely remembers her hazy rant, and hopes it doesn't end up hindering her from what she needs to do.

"We're behind you, every step of the way." Jean smiles wearily as Rogue feels embarrassed. Everyone got so sentimental when you nearly die.

"Not lettin' you in there with her, alone." Logan tells her, matter-of-factly. "We can all give Charles a piece of our minds..." He scowled when silver bangs shook no. "No?"

"Thank you,_ all_ of you..." She feels foolish when her eyes well up. If she starts getting emotional, they would all lose it. She doesn't know if she feels better or worse when Remy slips a gloved hand in hers. "But, Ah need to talk to Charles. Ah can't let emotions... Your's _or_ mine get in the way of what Ah have to say." The cajun frowned when she dropped his hand.

"But-" Scott begins.

"Listen, whatever reason Moira did this... Good or bad, selfish or tryin' to do the right thing... She has an agenda. She did it for a reason, one we may never really know. What Ah have," Fear seeps into her expression as she remembers her lives and her deaths. The robots, waiting to hunt them all (some of which they've already seen), watching her friends' lives fade away into nothing. Logan grabs her wrist, more pleading for her to calm. "Is the truth. Without bias, heck without any understandin'. He can see what Ah have, and use the knowledge to help us. Not what _she_ wants him to see, so he can do what he wants her to do."

She can't shake the image of her standing beside Apocalypse from her mind. How could she explain it? The longer Rogue waited to speak to Charles', the more worried she became. Logan doesn't like it, but Rogue's making the most sense she has since she woke up. And, it terrified him. The future was one thing he'd never feel they'll be equipped to handle, not the way Charles has been since Apocalypse.

"You _sure,_" The man demanded gruffly, and Rogue nods.

"Ya know you don't have to worry about me. Ah'll make sure the professor's dream doesn't get manipulated." He's prouder in that moment than he can remember, and he's grateful that he's trained such a tough cookie.

"We be right outside, no matter what." Remy declares, and Jean nods her head firmly.

"Please, nothing too crazy, _ja_?" Rogue tried to smile for her sibling. She raised a trembling fist to knock on the door, but Moira answered. Her stare, unreadable. Rogue squares her shoulders as much as she can, but she doesn't move. What goes around comes around, and they would have their day. But this was about the truth.

Everyone behind her looks ready to yell, but Charles holds up a hand and they are silenced. The man looks like he's experienced every emotion, rapidly. "No one needs to say a thing." His stare locked on Rogue's alabaster skin, stark against her black uniform. "Rogue,_ please_ come inside." Sending Kitty a reassuring look, the girl disappeared into the man's office.

The walls were lined with books as she looked around. She knew she needed to get here, but now she didn't know what to say. "Professor..."

"I only need look in your mind, dear." He cuts in, gently. "I have experienced first hand what happened to Moira. I now _know_ what happened to you." He can feel anger flare in the room as the girl turns to the woman from Scotland. So flippantly she had overturned Rogue's life.

"And, _what happened_ to me professor?" She asks, chasing Moira's stare. "Say it."

"You were... Reincarnated." Moira says, walking around Charles' wheelchair. "When Ah am reincarnated, so is time. Ah wasn' able to give ya that ability. But, ya lived_ full lives_ in your own mind, almost in-between here and the astral plane." Rogue vaguely feels threatened when the red head walks forward, remembering the lab burning around them. Her head begins to pound, but she fights the feeling. "Those lives left memories. Those lives gave you powers ya never had in this life. Those lives gave Apocalypse the ability to bring us here."

"How dare you use me to help him! _After what he did-_"

"Please, Rogue." Charles says half-heartedly. "I will help you understand it, all of it... As soon as y-"

"Don't believe her,_ please. She_... She has an agenda, one that will destroy us..." Moira only smiles.

"Ya teach your children well, Charles." Is all she says. She could almost repeat this conversation, verbatim. "You have no reason t'trust me and every reason to hate me, Rogue." Distrustful, grey eyes study Moira's face. "Think Rogue, of your memories... Your powers acquired in them..." Only when the bald telepath behind her nodded did she try, her forehead erupting in a pink light. _'What...'_ She looked at her hand as it morphed blue, than dark. "You are a powerful index of abilities, Rogue. And for all my wrong, Ah've made ya better."

_"Better,"_ Rogue responds, her voice steadily rising. "You think Ah'm _better_ for what you did?"

"Ah don't expect thanks. In fact, Ah'd do it even if ah _knew_ it'd kill ya. It's time for ya to understand why, lass." Understanding wasn't exactly the look on Rogue's face, but she turned towards Charles.

Rogue would never trust Moira, but the psychic did need to see what their real problem was: the machines. And, her lives could help him do that.

"Just look, professor. Whatever you chose to do, Ah'll support_ you._" He bowed his head.

"I know, Rogue. You can't know how much it means, to me." They both took a deep breath as he made the first attempt to look into her mind. He didn't see the past, or her other lives. He saw the future.

The first thing they both saw was a flower.

* * *

_"Do you want to know the real difference between them and us? Until now, we were never given a real chance."_

**-Charles Xavier**

* * *

**FLOWERS OF KRAKOA**

_The mutant island of Krakoa is not only the home of mutants and the seat of the nation-state, it is also the only known producer of it's main currency, the flowers of Krakoa. These herbs provide life extending and bettering cures to humans, improving their lives drastically (super antibiotic, a cure for "diseases of the mind", and an extension of life by five years)._

-x-

* * *

What is Krakoa? Is it land? Is it mutant? Is it both?

It comes from an ancient language once meaning 'living land'.

It was once one land, Okkara (eons ago). But, after calamity struck it turned the land into two: Krakoa and Arrako. Two living lands that felt solace in one another. But, calamity struck once more. Almost nothing survived when the first man before man, the first mutant Apocalypse sealed away his horsemen and half of the lands, forever. Krakoa is left alone and aware of that loneliness.

In _this_ future, Charles knows of this living land (lands mutants died, thousands of years in the future planting the seed of). He _knows_ that Krakoa is lonely and seeks kin. People. He knows of a mutant whose gift is to know every language of any kind. To create languages on the fly, as simple as reading. That Charles would communicate with the land, and he would find not a place for mutants but a _home._ Their land, for what is Krakoa if not the first mutant?

Rogue isn't crying, but tears are falling freely as she and Charles both witness something beyond their comprehension.

He would use Cerebro to expand the land's consciousness. Give it the ability to consent, to guard it's lands from intruders. From _humans._ From whoever they don't allow. Gates accessible by flowers growing only on their land. Flowers that can't grow elsewhere, not without permission. A sanctuary state that can be legitimized by it's usefulness to humans. One that can never be run down by the machines, because in _this_ future, the X-Men use Moira's labor and knowledge to stop the most dangerous creation of all from going online.

This is the future Moira slept for thousands of years, for. Apocalypse battled for eternity. All for this information. To create the future Rogue was _seeing._

Then, she saw herself. Flying. Running, with the X-Men. Some mission they aren't sure about. They're losing. It's now or never. Charles gasps when he sees the older Rogue shove everyone into an escape pod and launch it off, Logan banging in a fury on the window. She smiles, facing the soldiers who have come for her (with adamantium bullets). It was worth it, because they got what they needed. And, her family got away. Rogue can tell all of this through this vision.

Charles gasps when she sacrifices herself._ 'No, why...'_

Rogue isn't a part of that future. She, along with many others, would die fighting _for it_. She's always known the cost of what she does. But, the vision doesn't end. It melts seamlessly into one Rogue recognized, one she thought was a leftover memory from reincarnating.

_'How...'_

_Charles stood, and the sky glowed amber. "Your gift... It will be for everyone." This Charles walks, and he is never without Cerebro. A portable Cerebro is always sitting atop his head, tapping him into the island's neural network. From the trees house jewels, the grass whispers to him. 'This is right. All is right.' Soon, the air is filled with whispers as they reach for him. Through golden pods lining the trees._

_As they were in life. Red hair. Red eyes. As familiar as Charles' own heart. With Cerebro serving it's full purpose. With The Five working together. As one. Mutants would stand until they got it right and corrected human's mistakes. The one with claws. And finally, the one with a shroud of silver. She's died, maybe for the last time. But now, she lives again._

_The sun rises, she takes a breath. She breathes again. It's like being born. She would know, she remembers each and every time. The air sucks out a vacuum as she begins to remember. 'I am. Ah'm Rogue.' Again she's been pulled from oblivion, because her work is not done. She smiles when she sees familiar faces. Her brother. Jean. Logan. They rise, naked in the sunlight. There is a before. Everything, but death. The mission continues._

_"Never will we lose you, again."_

_"Brothers and sisters of Krakoa!" Ororo declares, shrouded in lush silver and black cloths. Her hair is pulled back, today. And, the stare in her eye is proud. Her friends have come home. "By the power that is their birthright, The Five have returned these mutants thought lost to us, their families, this place; their home. I SEE them, do you?" _

_The crowd of gathered mutants stand in the fields of flowers, and they scream. Rogue is naked, and she doesn't care. Here, on Krakoa, she is always among friends. And friends, only. "We see them, but do we know them?" The weather witch's eyes harden as she peers through Rogue's silver hair. "What is your name, child?" Rogue sniffed. _

_"Rogue." Cheers. Ororo nodded. _

_"And, how do we know?" Silence. Rogue blinked. _

_"When Ah was young and unapologetic, you always extended me grace, Ororo. You saw the woman Ah am today before Ah ever became her." She brought the mutant carefully to her and kissed her hair. _

_"You extended so much more grace than you ever knew, child. This is my daughter. I see her, as you do! Her name is Rogue, but she is more than that. She is what?" Chills blow down the girl's spine as the crowd shouts back at them. The sun is shining and she's among everyone she wants to be around. Her friends. Her family. Her people._

_"MUTANT!"_

Rogue's scream prompted Logan to bust through the door, dozens of anxious mutants at his back.

"Chuck? Stripe?" Distrustful eyes land on Moira. "Everything alright?" Neither of them can speak, the girl's mouth covered by a hand.

"Oh, Logan..." He doesn't know what to think when he meets Rogue's eyes. They've all had their worlds turned upside down, but he feels that's about to happen, again.

_"Logan,"_ She whispered. "Ah understand." The only solution to a world that hated mutants was rebirth. If her lives had told her anything, it was that.

* * *

**THE FIVE**

* * *

**CLASSIFIED**

_Working together, the group of mutants known as "The Five" are able to reincarnate or revive any mutant so long as access to their DNA and a psyche scan of their minds have been made with Cerebro. _

_\- Hope Summers_

_\- Fabio Medina_

_\- Elixir_

_\- Proteus_

_\- Eva Bell_

_Though separately, they are fairly unremarkable mutants, together they are able to create and give life (Hope Summers is able to synthesize and heighten the usage of one's powers) _


End file.
